


Love me, just for a bit

by sergeantsantiago



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, I honestly dont know what this is, Slow Burnish?, basically jake and amy cant keep their hands off each other, cop-con au, non explicit sex because i can't write smut, there's also a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-30 06:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14490549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeantsantiago/pseuds/sergeantsantiago
Summary: Spending the weekend at the stupid police convention was not the ideal plan Jake had in mind. That is, until he runs into the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life.Or, AU in which Jake and Amy meet at the annual Tri-State Police Officers Convention.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello folks here I am again with a multichap when I should be writing the neighbors au (shh). Anyways I got the idea for this after reading a particular line in one of @startofamoment's WIPs and it basically took over my entire life. This was supposed to be a long one shot but it's gonna be a seven part thing, and the good news is that it's already written so updates will be regular! yay!
> 
> Title from the song "Touch Me" from Spring Awakening

Spending the weekend in Rochester, New York, was not the ideal plan Jake had in mind. He’s been avoiding the stupid Tri-State Police Officers Convention for  _ years _ \- offering to work that particular weekend, claiming he was going out of town, or just straight up not showing up - but this time his newly appointed Captain basically dragged him there, talking during the entire car ride about all the lectures they’d attend (not one of them sounded a bit interesting) and the exhilarating activities Rochester had to offer (Jake’s not sure in which universe a thermometer museum could be considered exhilarating, but to each their own).

Still, it’s not half as bad as he thought it’d be. He lost Holt the second they arrived - their rooms are in opposite sides of the hotel - and he discovered the two halls full of police tech, something that got him quite excited. Also, a random person - an officer from another city, he supposes - who took the elevator with him told him about the Buffalo PD party. An  _ insane _ party, he was told. Jake’s not sure what the man meant, but he’s determined to find out.

The tech expo is even better than what he thought it would be. It’s like being in some kind of futuristic movie - there’s an actual robot that can patrol buildings by itself, how cool is that? 

After examining the robot for quite some time - how hard is it going to be to convince Holt to get one of those? - he moves towards the gun section. He’s about to reach for a very interesting looking gun that he has never seen before and has absolutely no idea how it works, when, out of nowhere, a woman shows up and grabs it before him. (Okay, he maybe wasn’t  _ that _ close to it, but it was the coolest gun on that particular stand and he wanted to look at it.)

He waits, and waits, and waits, but she just won’t put it down (maybe he’s being a bit impatient and not that much time has passed, but to him it feels like  _ hours _ \- he really,  _ really _ wants to get a close look of that gun). Slowly, he moves closer to her, but she’s so focused on the gun that she doesn't notice his presence until he clears his throat.

He’s taken aback the second she looks at him. She’s probably the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen in his life, and although she looks somewhat familiar, he’s sure that if he had met her before he wouldn’t have forgotten her.

“Do you need anything?” she asks, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh, um… yeah. I actually want to take a look at that.” He points to the gun she’s still holding. “Do you mind?”

“Well, I have it now. You’re gonna have to wait till I’m done.”

“You’ve had it for quite some time. I’ve been waiting for like an hour.”

“It hasn’t even been five minutes,” she points out, her lips curving slightly.

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Are you gonna take much longer?”

“I wasn’t,” she says, turning away back towards the table where all the guns are displayed. “But I think I will. This particular gun is just so  _ interesting _ .”

He crosses his arms in front of him. “You’re just doing that to annoy me.”

“Maybe,” she says, now smiling widely, more to herself than to him.

“Oh,  _ bad move _ .”

She raises her eyebrows. “Is that a threat?”

“Take it as you wish, just keep in mind that I’m known for being annoying.”

“It’s a good thing I can deal with annoying people.”

“Oh, you have  _ no idea _ what is coming.”

That’s how he spends the rest of the day following her around the hall, making silly comments about literally everything and, when he has the chance, reaching out for the stuff she was about to grab before she had a chance and refusing to let it go. She keeps rolling her eyes at him, but she never strays from the ‘carefully planned course of the exposition hall designed to take one through every single stand’ - her actual words. Some of his comments even make her laugh, though she tries to contain her chuckles every time. He would have left her alone if she had asked, but she seemed to enjoy having him around. She even waited for him when he got too carried away checking out some binoculars. It’s only when he’s back in his room getting ready for the party that he realizes he never got the chance to take a look at the cool gun.

He realizes he doesn’t know her name either, or anything about her for that matter, only that she’s a police officer of some kind (why would she be at cop-con if she wasn’t?). He really hopes she’s going to the party (apparently it’s a  _ huge _ event). He really wants to see her again.

He’s two drinks in and talking to someone - listening to someone talk - about the lectures of the day when he spots her. She’s talking to another woman, a taller woman all dressed in black who looks scary (terrifying). The taller woman says something and walks away, leaving her alone in the middle of the room.

He’s not sure if he said anything to the person he was talking to, but suddenly he finds himself in front of her, offering her a drink.

“Thanks,” she says, taking the plastic cup from his hand with a small smile. “Are you still determined to annoy me?”

“I’m actually starting to think you’re unannoyable.”

“That’s not a word,” she points out. He just shrugs, making her roll her eyes at him, her smile growing slightly. “And yeah, that’s one of the perks of growing up with seven brothers,” she adds.

“Wow, that’s... a lot of brothers.”

She chuckles. “Yeah.”

“I’m Jake, by the way,” he says, determined to not let an awkward silence fall between them. 

“Amy.” She takes a sip of her drink - a  _ big _ sip, she probably downed half the cup - before looking up at him again. “So, Jake, is this your first time at the convention? I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I always thought the whole thing was kinda lame, and also, Rochester? But I was forced to come this year.”

Her lips quirk into a coy smile as she looks at him through her lashes. "Aren’t you glad you came?"

The way she looks at him when she says that makes his knees go weak. It’s probably the alcohol - it definitely must be the alcohol. It has nothing to do with the beautiful woman that’s very clearly flirting with him.

“Well,” he begins once he’s certain that his voice won’t give away the effect she’s having on him, “I didn’t know about the tech expo, so that was a good surprise. Although... I didn’t get to take a look at everything I wanted.”

“And that was  _ my _ fault?”

“Your words, not mine.” She rolls her eyes, but her smile gives her away. “It’s definitely better than I’d expected,” he adds, his eyes fixed on hers.

She nods, her previously teasing grin now a smaller, shy smile. The room’s poorly lit, but he’s certain that there’s a hint of a blush spreading on her cheeks. She looks down to her cup then, noticing in that moment that it’s almost empty. “I’m gonna refill this,” she says, shaking the cup slightly. “Do you want more?”

“I’ll come with you, if that’s cool.”

“Yeah,” she answers, her smile growing bigger again.

They can’t get anywhere near the beer keg though. Someone’s probably doing something with it, but there are so many people surrounding it that they can’t get a clear look. Amy shrugs and turns away almost immediately, but he’s curious to know what’s going on. He tries pushing some people away, but he’s met with even  _ more _ people. Who would have guessed that a hotel room could be this crowded?

A soft tap on his shoulder makes him turn away. It’s Amy, and she’s holding a very big, very full bottle of vodka.

“Where’d you get that from?”

“I have my ways. Wanna do shots?”

“Uh, obviously.”

He’s impressed to say the least. In the time he took to do one shot, she gulped down three. But as impressed as he might be, he knows how much is enough, and he doesn’t want her to be sick. In a moment of distraction, when the scary woman he’s seen Amy talking to earlier comes by to tell her something, he takes the bottle away and places it in the hands of the first person that walks by. A minute later the woman goes away and he’s alone with Amy again.

Her eyes are glassy now, he notices, and she’s looking at him in a weird way, though it might just be the vodka mixing with the beer in his stomach. Before he can even react, she takes his hand in hers and leads him away - where to, he has no idea (he doesn’t mind, he would gladly follow her anywhere).

They’re in the hallway when she lets go, his hand immediately missing the warmth of hers. There are people here, though significantly less than inside the room, and it’s a lot quieter too. It’s a good place to talk, although, now that he can see more clearly, none of the people here seem to be  _ talking _ .

A moment after that realization hits him, he finds himself pressed against the wall, Amy’s lips on his.

He’s completely still for a second - or more than a second because when he’s able to actually think again, they are no longer in contact.

“I’m sorry,” she begins when he looks at her, confused. She’s not looking at him, her eyes fixed on a spot above his shoulder. “I just- I thought…” She shakes her head, trying to find the right words.

Something takes over him then, and he has no idea where it’s all coming from, but his hands find their way to her waist, and he pulls her closer to him. When their lips meet again, he actually kisses her back this time.

He wasn’t expecting this to happen, not so soon at least. Has he been flirting with her since the second he met her? Yes, he definitely has. But not once has it crossed his mind that he would end the day making out with her. It’s awesome.

Her hands are around his neck, pulling at his hair softly, her entire body pressed against his. One of his hands finds its way from her waist to her back, and the soft, almost inaudible moan that escapes her when he brings her even closer is enough to set his insides on fire.

He almost combusts when her lips move to his jaw and down to his neck. He doesn’t want this to ever,  _ ever _ , stop, but they are in a very public place and, although everyone else in the room is too busy doing the same thing as them, there still are people around them and, if they don’t stop right this second, it will escalate and then he really won’t be able to stop.

So he moves back as far as the wall will allow him, his hands not leaving her hips. She takes the hint and pulls away, and when she looks at him her lips are swollen and her eyes dark, and he has to do literally everything in his power to suppress a groan. It’s not enough, and it catches in his throat, producing the weirdest sound that’s ever come out of him. He’s mortified for a split second, but her giggles are contagious.

A moment passes before they can catch their breaths. The hand still around his neck is playing with his hair, the other flat against his chest. “Should we go somewhere more… private?” Her voice is soft, just above a whisper, but surprisingly firm.

If he wanted a way out, this is it. But he doesn’t. That’s literally the opposite of what he wants right now. “My room’s on the next floor,” he says automatically, his voice hoarse.

She nods, her lips curving slightly, and she steps away. He misses the contact the instant her hands leave his body, but a second later she takes one of his hand in hers and starts moving, leading the way towards the elevator at the end of the hallway, him trailing behind her.

It’s not a long ride, and when the elevator door opens and they step out she pushes him against the nearest wall, her lips automatically finding his neck. A soft moan escapes him, which only encourages her, and she brings her hands up to the top button of his shirt, fumbling with it until it’s undone and then moving onto the next.

Before her hands reach the last button, though, he grabs her wrists and pulls them away, intertwining his fingers with hers. There’s a frown on her face when she looks up at him, her head tilted slightly to the side with confusion.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asks, her voice breathy, causing the heat on his lower abdomen to multiply in intensity.

“No, no, no, not at all. It’s just- my room’s right there,” he sighs, nodding towards the direction of his door. “We should- we should continue this inside.”

She doesn’t even wait for the door to be completely closed behind them to finish unbuttoning his shirt. Her eagerness makes him chuckle, confusing her for a split second, and he takes advantage of it, taking her by the hips and pressing her against the now closed door. When their lips meet again his hands slip under her blouse, her skin burning against his touch.

He’s not sure how, but they end up on the bed, him on top of her, his face buried on her neck, pressing his lips on every inch of skin he can reach. She pulls at his hair when he nibbles a particular sensitive spot in the crook of her neck, grinding her hips against his, a soft moan escaping her slightly parted lips.

It all becomes a blur from that moment on.

It’s not until later, when he falls next to her, eyes closed, heart pounding loud in his ears, that he is able to process everything that happened. The only sound in the room is their breathing, slowly settling into a regular rhythm. His left arm is pressed against her right, the only part of their bodies in contact (a big contrast with two minutes earlier), her skin burning against his in the best possible way.

He feels her weight shift after a moment, the heat against his arm being replaced by cold air, and when he finally opens his eyes she’s on her side, head propped on in one hand. She’s staring at him, with the softest smile he’s ever seen. The moonlight pouring into the room, mixed with the glow of the Rochester streetlights, gives her face a dreamlike aura. If he wasn’t certain before, he now knows for sure that she is, in fact, the most beautiful woman in the entire world.

He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what, and, even if he did, he doubts he could form words. So he leans slightly towards her, but before he can actually turn to face her, she moves closer and kisses him.

It’s different from before; sweeter, gentler, not rushed or heated. Her lips are soft and warm against his, and when she pulls away, he leans his head against the hand that found its way to his cheek.

She ends up curled against his side, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Subconsciously, his hand starts tracing random patterns on her arm, allured by the softness of her skin. She sighs, long and deep, and buries her face in his neck. Only when her breathing slows down and becomes even, letting him assume she’s asleep, does he allow himself to close his eyes again.

Everything about this day feels completely surreal, but still, there’s something deep inside him that tells him this is exactly how it was supposed to be.

* * *

A loud bang makes him jerk awake. He closes his eyes on reflex, the sunshine pouring in from the open curtains blinding him for a moment. His head hurts, probably due to the alcohol from the previous night.

He turns sharply to his left. He’s alone.

Another bang, although now that he’s awake he realizes it’s not actually a bang but someone rapping on his room door.

He stands up as fast as he can (which is not really fast thanks to his brain being on fire), hastily puts on the clothes that he finds lying on the floor, and rushes towards the door, a frown on his face. He did  _ not _ spend the night alone. He drank, yes, but not so much that he wouldn’t remember what happened. He came back here with Amy. They had (amazing) sex. She’s not here now. Where’d she go?

He’s not fast enough to suppress a groan when he opens the door and sees Captain Holt standing in the hallway. “What now?”

“Peralta, are you just waking up? It’s almost noon.” He sounds annoyed, or angry, or maybe even surprised, Jake can never tell.

He could come up with a lie, or an excuse to explain why he was sleeping in the middle of the day, but that means using his brain, and right now, his brain doesn’t want to be used. “Yeah. What? Did I miss something I do not care about?”

“I want to see you at my presentation in ten minutes.”

Jake groans again, internally this time. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Put on something decent and be there  _ before _ the presentation starts.” He doesn’t wait for Jake to answer, he just turns and walks away.

His new Captain is the  _ worst _ .

He has other stuff to worry about rather than being at a stupid presentation he doesn’t even know what it’s about. One of the things being the whereabouts of the woman he spent the night with and who he very much wants to see again.

Maybe she went back to her room, or maybe her Captain is also the worst and needed her for something. Maybe there was a lecture she didn’t want to miss, or maybe she wanted to explore Rochester before going back to wherever she’s from (this seems like the most unlikely possibility, but it is a possibility and he’s not dismissing it unless he has proof to do so).

When he moves towards one of the nightstands to grab his phone before leaving, he notices a small piece of folded paper purposely placed between the phone and the wood of the table. His blood turns cold when he reads the neat handwriting scribbled on it.

_ I had a really great time last night. Maybe we’ll meet again sometime. Xo -A. _


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, Santiago, isn’t that the guy you hooked up with last year?”

Rosa’s words make her turn sharp towards the direction her eyes are fixed on. She’s right. Jake’s sitting at the bar of the hotel restaurant where they are having lunch. From her spot, she can only see his profile, but she’d recognize him anywhere.

“Wait,” Amy says with a frown, turning back towards her friend, “how do you know that?”

Rosa shrugs. “I saw you making out at the party _and_ leaving with him.”

Amy nods, turning her head to glance at where he’s sitting, alone. “Should I… should I go talk to him?”

“Do you _want_ to talk to him?”

Amy opens her mouth to answer but closes it again when no sound comes out. A part of her wants to pretend that nothing happened, that she didn’t have drunk sex with a guy she’d met that same day, and, if he spotted her and talked to her, she’d just pretend that she had completely forgotten about the whole thing until that moment. But another part, a much bigger part, brings back the memories of that day - not just the sex she hasn’t forgotten because she wasn’t actually that drunk, but also the flirting at the party and the teasing at the tech expo and how he made her laugh with most of the things he said. That part also reminds her of how she couldn’t stop thinking about him for weeks, wishing she’d at least written down her number or email or _something_. She’d pushed all that to the very back of her mind, and it’s stayed there until this moment.

“Yeah,” she answers, her voice low. “But what do I say? It’s been a _year_ , Rosa. Maybe he doesn’t even remember me.”

Rosa sighs, rolling her eyes on the process. “Just talk to him. I’m sure he remembers you. You’re not an easy person to forget.”

“Thanks?” She watches as Rosa shrugs again and refocuses her attention on the food in front of her.  The conversation is over.

Amy stares at her plate, not really hungry anymore, her lower lip between her teeth, brows knitted together. What is she supposed to say? _‘Hi, remember me? We had sex last year.’_ Okay, that’s not bad, minus the sex part. If Rosa’s right, and for some reason she usually is, then he probably remembers her, so that part is unnecessary too. She should just walk up to him, say hello, see what happens. A wave of determination washes over her. She’s doing this.

But when she turns around he’s no longer sitting at the bar, the stool he previously occupied now holding a young woman who’s deep in conversation with a man.

“This place isn't that big, you’ll find him again.” Rosa’s voice comes from behind her, making Amy frown at how easily her own disappointment shows.

“Yeah,” she sighs, turning back and picking up the fork to finish her salad. “I hope I do.”

She spends the entire time at the tech expo looking for him. She’s not paying one bit of attention to the equipment. It’s fine, there aren’t many important technological advances from last year, or any that interest her. She follows Rosa, scanning their surroundings when they stop at a stand, every time hoping that she will spot him. But she doesn’t, which is not weird at all considering there are a lot of people and the stands block the view. There’s also _another_ exposition hall. He might have simply chosen that one instead.

It’s fine. There’s still the party. He’s definitely going to be there.

It’s when she can’t find him there that she really starts to worry. Maybe he doesn’t feel like coming, maybe something came up and he had to go home early like she did last year. The point is, she had her chance at the restaurant and she blew it, and it makes her feel like a complete idiot. She feels even worse when she realizes she’s feeling stupid for missing her chance with someone she’s met once in her life, someone who isn’t her friend, or her colleague, or anything.

She wants to go back to her room and sleep, but the thought that he might show up at some point keeps her there. She’s not drinking though, or playing any of the games Rosa is too invested in, or having fun for that matter. She’s sitting on a chair she found near the window, skimming the group chat she has with her brothers and who _never_ shut up, looking up from her phone every few seconds to scan the room.

She’s typing a reply to something particularly stupid Tony said when she feels a light tap on her  left shoulder. She doesn’t even bother to hide the smile that appears on her face when she sees Jake standing next to her.

“Hey! I was looking for you!”

“It sure seems like you were,” he says, pointing to her unlocked phone on her hand, smiling just as widely as her.

She rolls her eyes but he can’t see her, he’s making his way around her to reach for the chair at the other side of a small table. When he does, he moves it to her side and sits down.

“I _was_ looking for you. You can ask my friend.” She points to Rosa, who’s in the middle of the room drinking vodka straight from the bottle.

“Your friend looks terrifying.”

“She is,” Amy agrees, “but you get used to it.”

He lets out a small chuckle, turning to his left on the chair so he’s facing her. “Why were you looking for me?”

“I… I wanted to talk to you. I saw you at the restaurant earlier but you were gone before I could do anything.”

“Yeah, my boss forced me to attend this stupid lecture on filing techniques or something, I didn’t pay attention. It went on for _hours_ , I missed the tech expo because of it.”

Oh. Well, that explains a lot.

“Anything particular thing you wanted to talk to me about?” he continues. “Or did you just want to hear my sexy voice again?”

Amy snorts. “Keep dreaming.”

“Hey! I have a sexy voice!”

“Sure you do.”

He brings a hand to his chest, an expression of fake hurt appearing on his face, and she can’t hold back a laugh.

“There _is_ something I wanted to tell you,” she says when she catches her breath. She watches as he nods and pulls his chair even closer to her, a burning sensation spreading from the spot where his knee touches her thigh. “I- I’m sorry for just… leaving,” she starts, fixing her eyes on her lap. “I got a call from work and I had to go back as soon as possible. It’s not like me _at all_ to leave like that.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, taking her hand in his. “You don’t owe me an explanation. And you did leave a note.”

“I wrote that so fast I didn’t even include half the things I wanted to say.”

He squeezes her hand, and when she looks up and meets his eyes her insides automatically start burning. She’d forgotten the effect he had on her last time, the effect he very clearly still has.

“What did you want to say?” His voice is low, and the urge to lean forward and kiss him is almost too strong to fight back.

“That I didn’t want to leave,” she blurts out. She can feel the blood rushing to her face, but she can’t take her eyes away from his.

His mouth curves into the smallest of smiles, making his entire face go soft. It reduces her willpower to nothing, and, before she can process her actions, she’s kissing him.

It’s short, and sweet, and when she pulls away he’s smiling widely, something that makes her heart beat as if she had just run ten miles.

Without a word, he stands up, holding out his hand for her to take. She does so, but when he guides her to the opposite direction of where the room door is, she frowns.

“Where are we going?” she asks loud enough to be heard over the blaring music. The second the last word leaves her mouth she sees him reaching for the sliding door that leads to the balcony.

“It’s quieter here,” he says once they are both outside and the door is shut behind them. It’s true, she can still hear the music, but it’s not so loud that they have to be mere inches apart to hear the other.

She nods in agreement, moving towards the railing. The pool can be seen from here and she chuckles with disbelief when she sees people with plastic cups down there. It’s her fourth time attending the party - and the convention - and the magnitude of it still amazes her.

“So,” he says, ending the silence that had fallen between them. He moves to her side, placing a hand on her lower back, causing her to lean against it on reflex.

“So…” she echoes when he stops there, turning to face him, her eyebrows raised.

“As much as I enjoy making out with you - and trust me, I do - I think maybe we should talk? We know nothing about each other.”

“Don’t you like the mystery?” She watches as his mouth opens and closes, opens and closes again, no words coming out of it. It makes her chuckle. “I just- this… thing between us- knowing nothing about each other somehow makes it even more exciting.”

He raises his eyebrows, an amused expression appearing on his face. “Are you saying not knowing anything about me turns you on?” He lets out a small laugh. “And _I_ ’m the kinky one.” He says the last part more to himself, but she still catches it, and it makes her incredibly curious.

“You’re the kinky one?” she laughs. “What is that about?”

Her words cause his eyes to widen. “Whaaaaat? I didn’t say that, what are you talking about?” His high pitched voice only makes Amy laugh more.

“This is a police convention, I’m sure we can find handcuffs somewhere,” she says once her giggles die down.

“I know you’re making fun of me, but that does work for me.”

She raises her eyebrows and nods, pressing her lips together in order to hide the smile that is threatening to return to her face. “Noted. Anything else?”

He brings her closer to him, one hand still on her lower back and the other finding its way to her waist. “You’re gonna have to figure that out.”

She wraps her arms around his neck the second his lips meet hers, pressing her entire body against his. The kiss is more rushed, more heated than the one they shared just a few minutes earlier. One of her hands settles on his hair, pulling lightly at it, while she traces patterns on the back of his neck with the other. A soft moan escapes her when his hands slip under her shirt and his lips curve into a smile, giving her a chance to pull away and attempt to regulate her breathing.

“Should we go to my room this time?” she asks before his lips have a chance to return to hers. “That way you will know if I have to leave.”

He nods dumbly, pressing his lips against the side of her mouth.

Later, after she collapses next to him and once the sweat on her skin has cooled, she curls on his side, burying her face on the crook of his neck and pressing light kisses on the skin within her reach.

“So you really won’t tell me anything about you?” he asks eventually, his voice hoarse and low.

“What do you want to know?” she asks, propping her head on one hand and placing the other flat on his chest.

“Hm… Where do you live?”

“New York.”

“The state or the city?”

She doesn’t answer, choosing to raise one eyebrow instead.

“You’re not telling me, are you?” A pout forms on his face and she kisses it away. “Why?”

“I told you, I’d rather we don’t tell each other that.”

He sighs, bringing a hand up her back, stoking her skin softly. “If we did, maybe we wouldn’t have to wait a whole year to see each other again.”

She leans forward and kisses him again, this time letting her lips linger on his for a moment longer. “I could give you my email if you really want to keep in touch,” she says once she rests her head on his shoulder and starts tracing patterns on his chest.

“Why not your number?”

“Area code,” she says simply.

“Right. Email’s cool, I’d like to have a way to contact you. What if I can’t come next year and you wait for me, _super horny_ , and I never show up?”

She rolls her eyes, snuggling closer to him on instinct. “That’d be a real tragedy.”

“Mhm,” he agrees, ignoring the sarcasm dripping from her words. “We wouldn’t want that.”

“Definitely not.”

“And it would suck too if it was the other way around.”

She lifts her head to look at him, her lips curved into an amused smile. “Oh, but it _is_ more likely to be the other way around. Not the not being able to come part though, the horny part.”

“Hey!” He pokes her side, and she flinches - not because it hurts, but because the place where his finger touches her skin is one of her most ticklish spots. He notices this, of course, and starts moving his fingers against her sensitive skin.

But she’s fast, and she grabs him by the wrist before he even realizes what she’s doing, and pushes his hand away, only letting go when he lets out a yelp of pain.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, sitting up and reaching for his hand again, this time to examine the damage she might have caused.

“It’s okay. I actually don’t mind that _at all_.”

She frowns, but when she moves her gaze from his hand to his face and sees the way he’s staring at her - dark eyes filled with desire - she can’t stop herself from bursting into laughter.

“Is that one of your kinks?” she asks between chuckles.

“You’re laughing so I’m not telling you.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, wiping the tears that formed in the corners of her eyes. She takes a deep breath before speaking again. “I just- I wasn’t expecting that.”

He rolls his eyes. “Are you gonna keep making fun of me or are you gonna use the information you’ve just uncovered to do something we both will enjoy?”

She moves one of her legs to his other side, straddling him, and takes both of his hands on hers, pressing them against the pillow under his head as she leans down to plant a kiss on his lips. “Definitely the latter.”

* * *

“Amy, wake up.”

She groans, rolling over and burying her face on the pillow.

Something pokes her softly on the ribs.

“ _Amy_ , there’s someone at the door.”

“They can go away,” she murmurs into the soft fabric under her face. She absolutely despises getting little sleep, and, by the way her head hurts, it’s been less than five hours since she fell asleep. It’s partly her fault, she’s aware of that, she shouldn’t have stayed up as late as she did (although she doesn’t regret any of her choices from the previous night), but, in her defense, she wasn’t expecting to have someone knocking on her door early in the morning.

“They’ve been at it for a while now,” Jake’s voice comes from somewhere to her left. “Maybe it’s something important?”

She lifts her head, keeping her eyes tightly shut against the bright sunshine pouring into the room. She doesn’t need to see to know that he’s trying to hold back a chuckle.

“What?” she asks, rubbing her eyes.

“Nothing. You’re just really cute.” He leans towards her and presses a kiss to her cheek, something that makes her blood run to her face and her lips curve into a small smile.

She’s about to lean towards him and peck his lips when someone bangs the door with enough strength to break it in half (thankfully it doesn’t happen, _she_ would have had to pay for that as the room is under her name).

She sighs and rolls over, shivering a little when she pushes the covers off her body. Two other bangs come in the time she takes to get up, reach for the hotel-supplied bathrobe, and open the door.

“Great, you’re not even dressed.” It’s Rosa - Amy should have guessed, who else knocks on doors like that? - and she seems annoyed.

“It’s like 8 a.m., of course I’m not dressed,” Amy says, stifling a yawn.

“Well, you better change because the stupid lecture you signed us up for starts in fifteen minutes.” Right. The lecture on evolution of police technology she was dying to attend. “You forgot about it, didn’t you?”

“You shouldn’t have let me sign us up.”

“I _told_ you not to but you did it behind my back. And now I’m up at this inhuman hour and we’re going so get changed.”

Amy groans in protest but all it takes is one look from Rosa to make her go back into the room to get ready.

“I have to go,” she says to Jake as she opens her bag in search of clean clothes. “So you have to leave.”

“What? Why?” He sits up and a smile appears on her face when she sees the fluff of messy hair on his head.

“I’m not leaving leaving, I’m just attending a lecture. We can meet up after.” She stands up, pile of clothes in her hands. “I’m gonna shower, you should be changed by the time I’m done.”

“Can’t you just skip it?” he yells after her, making her stop on the doorway to the bathroom.

“I wish,” she sighs, cursing her past self for being an idiot and not considering the possibility that she might spend the night with someone and a lecture so early in the morning would only be an inconvenience. He pouts, and it’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen in her life. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he says, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. She was about to enter the bathroom but eyes linger on his very good looking, very naked body. He notices, of course. “Like what you see?”

She considers rolling her eyes but chooses against it. “Yeah,” she answers before walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

* * *

The rest of the day does _not_ go as planned. The lecture was interesting, even Rosa enjoyed it, and Amy does not regret attending it. She only wishes it could have been at any other time of day so she would have gotten a bit more time with Jake. Just a bit, that’s all she wanted.

They had agreed to meet up at the restaurant. She had said she wasn’t sure how long the lecture would last and he had said he didn’t mind, he would wait all day if he had to. But when she was leaving the lecture hall her Captain found her and Rosa and told them he wanted to introduce his two best detectives to some of his colleagues. In any other occasion Amy would have started doing her signature dork dance the second she heard those words leaving her superior’s mouth, but the thought of Jake waiting for her at the restaurant held her back.

“It’s not going to take long,” her Captain said upon seeing her face. “You’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the rest of the day’s activities.”

Rosa snorted at that, earning herself a glare from Amy.

But it did take long, and by the time she made it to the restaurant, well into the afternoon, Jake was not there.

She doesn’t blame him, she wasn’t expecting him to wait for her the entire day, although she can’t deny that she was holding onto the hope that he might.

It’s when she’s in the car going back to New York, on the passenger seat next to Rosa, watching the sky turning from light to dark blue, a mix of yellow, orange, pink, and purple in between, that she realizes she didn’t have the chance to give him her email. She kinda wants to cry.


	3. Chapter 3

“Jake, are you even listening to me?”

“Huh?” He turns to face Boyle with a puzzled expression.

“Look at this  _ amazing _ heat ray!” Boyle says, holding up what it seems to be just a regular heat ray, and Jake uses the moment when he brings it closer to his face to inspect it thoroughly to fix his eyes on the very familiar brunette across the exposition hall.

He only looks away when Boyle punches his shoulder.

“What?” Jake says with a frown, rubbing the spot Charles hit.

“What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing! I just don’t think that heat ray is anything special,” he shrugs.

“Now I  _ know _ something’s wrong. Tell me, Jake. I’m your best friend.”

“Charles, I’m completely,  _ perfectly _ fine, okay?”

When Charles told him that for the first time ever the Boyle cousins vacation, which for some reason always happened the same weekend as the convention, was suspended thanks to an argument about a thing that definitely didn’t need arguing between two cousins Jake can’t remember the name of, and that he would be attending the convention with him, Jake couldn’t have been more excited. But now that they’re here, now that he’s spotted Amy, he isn’t so sure about it.

“Okay,” Boyle says, not sounding one bit convinced. “Shall we move to the next stand if this heat ray is so lame?”

“Why are you so obsessed with it?”

A soft tap on his shoulder makes him turn around. A wide beam spreads on his face when he sees Amy standing next to him, her smile matching his own.

“Hey!” Although her voice is soft he gets the impression that she’s as excited to see him as he is to see her.

Before he can answer, Charles appears on his side, his arms crossed in front of him and a smug smile on his face. “I  _ see _ what’s going on,” he says, with the creepiest voice Jake has ever heard come out of his mouth.

Amy frowns in confusion, looking at Jake for some sort of explanation.

“This is my friend Charles,” he says to Amy, and she nods, but the frown doesn’t leave her face.

“ _ Best _ friend.”

“Right, best friend.”

Amy nods again, directing a polite smile towards Charles. “I just wanted to say hi,” she says after a beat, speaking to Jake. “I’ll see you at the party?”

“Definitely,” he answers, and before he can add something else, she walks away and disappears into the crowd.

“ _ Who is that? _ ” Boyle’s voice brings Jake back to reality, making him look away from the spot where he last saw her. “I could literally  _ see _ the sexual tension!”

“Shut up, Charles.”

“Jakey, seriously! The way she looked at you, the way you look at her, I can see you getting married in the future.”

“Charles!”

“What? I’m just speaking the truth.” Boyle shrugs, and Jake rolls his eyes. “Will you at least tell me who she is?”

He knows Charles well enough to know that, in this kind of situation, the best thing to do is just tell him the truth. “She’s…” His voice trails off. What is he supposed to say when he knows so little about her? “We met at the convention two years ago.”

“And…?”

“And nothing. I’ve only seen her twice in my life, three times if you count what just happened.”

“ _ Oh my god _ , you had sex!”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“It’s written all over your face! No wonder you were so eager to come last year. You’re not interested in the police aspect of this thing at all!”

“You’re wrong there,” Jake points out. “I love the tech expo.”

“So I’m right about the sex.”

“Shut up, Charles.”

* * *

Jake’s not known for his punctuality. More like, he’s known for his lack of it. That’s why even he is surprised when he arrives at the party at the exact time it was supposed to begin, Charles trailing behind him.

Charles hasn’t stopped talking about Amy, giving Jake useful tips to improve his sex technique (his actual words), and repeating that shampooing a woman’s hair is the most erotic thing he could do, even when Jake’s told him to stop several times. He even said he should propose, after which Jake stopped listening to anything his friend said. It doesn’t help that they’re sharing a room. He can’t get away from Charles for even a second.

When Amy arrives, just a couple of minutes after them, he’s thankful that Charles has his back towards her. After listening to him all day, he’s slightly terrified of what he could say to her if he had a chance to have a conversation with her.

He sends Charles to get them some drinks from the keg in the adjoining room, tells him that he better go now, later it will be too crowded. The second he’s out of sight he walks to Amy’s side, grabbing her by the arm before she can say anything and taking her out of the room with him.

“Hello to you too” she says when he stops walking, after turning the corner at the end of the hallway. “What’s going on?” She’s confused, that much is clear to him and not surprising at all, but there is also a glint of amusement in her eyes.

“I wanted to talk to you.  _ Alone _ .”

“But why drag me here?”

“You met my friend,” he says, and a wave of understanding washes over her. 

“Yeah, that was… odd.”

Jake chuckles softly at her choice of words. “He’s a great guy, really. He’s just… intense. I wanted to warn you that he probably won’t leave us alone tonight.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I’m also sharing a room with him,” he adds after a beat, “so we’re gonna have to go to yours later.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” she says as she takes his hands in hers, a coy smile appearing on her face. “We don’t know what’s happening later.”

“That’s mean.”

She chuckles and he leans forward, planting a soft kiss on her lips which she accepts gladly. He frees his hands from hers and lets them find their way to her waist.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

“Huh?”

“Last year, we were supposed to meet at the hotel restaurant and you never showed up.” He doesn't resent her, he  _ was _ disappointed back then, he’s not going to lie, but now he’s mostly curious.

“ _ Oh _ , yeah, I’m  _ so _ sorry, Jake. My boss wanted to introduce me to some important people and I couldn’t just  _ leave _ . I did go to the restaurant but it was too late and you weren’t there anymore.”

He nods, bringing his left hand to her face and brushing his thumb against her cheek. “It’s okay. I’m just asking ‘cause I came up with a million different theories and I wanted to know if I guessed.”

“Did you?” she asks, leaning her head slightly against his hand. The small movement is enough to set something something inside him, something somewhat alike to the burning sensation he’s got used to feeling when he’s with her, but not quite the same.

“My number one theory was that you were abducted by aliens but it was debunked when I saw you earlier, so no, I didn’t guess.”

She lets out a chuckle but immediately bites her lower lip, looking up at him through her lashes. “I hope you didn’t think I didn’t want to meet up with you,” she says, her voice low, “‘cause that’s not true at all.”

He leans forward again and presses a firm kiss on her lips, but he pulls away when he feels her hands on his hair.

“Let’s not rush things,” he whispers when he pulls away, not moving more than a couple of inches from her.

“Right,” she answers, hands still around his neck. “We have a party to go to.”

* * *

“Jake where were you?”

It’s the first thing they hear when they return to the party, the room’s now almost overflowing with people. He has absolutely no idea how Charles spotted him the second he and Amy stepped inside with so many people around, but he did, and before he knows it, Charles is in front of them. The first thing he notices is they are holding hands, fingers intertwined, and the smile that appears on his face is so big that it takes more than half of it.

“Were you having sex?” Charles yells-whispers, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“No, Charles, we were not having sex.”

“Right.” He winks, and Jake sighs.

He loves Charles, he  _ is _ his best friend, but this is the one time in the whole year that he gets to see Amy and having Charles constantly around saying inappropriate things to them is not how he expected to spend the night. And yeah, maybe he shouldn’t be this excited about being with her, he can’t even say she’s his friend, but he can’t help the warmth that spreads inside him every time he looks at her.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” Amy announces, freeing her hand from Jake’s.

“I’ll go with you,” he says, but Charles stops him, holding a plastic cup to his face.

“This is for you, you asked me to get you something.”

“Right.” Jake nods, watching as Amy chuckles softly and walks away. “Dude,” he says to Charles once he’s sure Amy’s out of earshot, taking the cup from his hand, “you need to chill! You’re gonna scare her off.”

“I’m sorry, Jakey, I’m just  _ so excited _ !”

“Okay, look, I can’t believe I’m gonna say this but do you want me to spend the night with her?”

“Of course I do!” Charles yells so loud that some people around them turn around to check what’s going on. “She’s  _ perfect _ for you, I can feel it.”

“Then you need to leave us alone. I can’t talk to her if you’re constantly asking about the sex we might or might not have had.”

“You mean the sex you definitely had.”

“Charles!”

“Right, I’m sorry, I’ll leave you alone. But you’re gonna have to tell me  _ everything _ later, okay?  _ Everything _ .”

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening.”

“But, Jake-” Boyle’s protest is interrupted by Amy’s return, something Jake is thankful for.

“Charles, isn’t that one of your friends from the academy?” Jake asks, pointing at a random person on the other side of the room, hoping that Boyle will get the hint.

“What? I don’t think so.”

“Are you sure? Because I think it is. Why don’t you go say hello?”

“No, Jake, that’s not-  _ oh _ .” In a second, the confused frown on his face is replaced by a suggestive smile. “You know what? I do think I know him.” He turns to Jake and winks. “I’m gonna go over there, see you!” A second later, he disappears.

When Jake  _ finally _ turns to Amy she has a hand covering her mouth, very obviously trying to hide the smile that she couldn’t hold back.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, poking her shoulder.

“Your friend, and the fact that you literally sent him away.”

He gives a chuckle, taking her free hand in his. “Should we go somewhere less crowded? It’ll be harder for him to find us, and he  _ will _ try to find us.”

“I thought you didn’t want to go up to my room just yet.”

“Wow, are you that horny? I never mentioned your room.” She rolls her eyes, taking a sip from her cup. “I meant down at the pool or something like that.”

“Oh, yeah, let’s go there.”

The weather is perfect for being outside, not too hot, not too cold, and the late spring night breeze is refreshing. The music can be barely heard from here, but still, there are people gathered in groups chatting merrily, red plastic cups everywhere. He leads Amy towards a pool chair, in which they sit side by side, their arms brushing against each other.

She brings her cup to her lips with both hands and gulps down what was left of her beer, and, when she puts it down on the floor, he notices that she’s shaking lightly.

“Are you  _ cold _ ?” he asks, surprised.

“A bit,” she answers with a shrug, “but I’ll be fine, I’m always cold anyway.”

“We can go back inside.”

“No, no. I like it here, it’s quiet.”

He nods, placing an arm around her shoulders and bringing her closer to him. A frown appears on his face when he feels the skin of her arm cold against his fingers. “We really don’t have to stay here.”

“You’re like a human heater,” she says, wrapping her arms around his middle. “I’ll be fine.”

A few changes in position later, she ends up sitting on his lap, legs draped over him, her head resting against his shoulder and his arms wrapped tightly around her, rubbing her the bare skin of her arms to keep her from being cold.

“How’s your year been?” he asks after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Alright,” she sighs, her breath tickling his neck. “Nothing too exciting happened. Yours?”

“I did an assignment with the FBI, I was undercover in the mafia for two months. It was awesome.”

“What?” She sits up straight in order to face him, her new position bringing his hands to her hips. “Jake, that’s so dangerous.”

“I know, that’s why it was so awesome.”

“They could have  _ killed _ you,” she points out, poking his chest for emphasis.

“Aw, are you worried about me? That’s so sweet.” He moves his hands up her back, bringing her closer and leaning forward to plant a kiss on her lips. “I’m fine, though. No need to worry.”

Still, the frown doesn’t leave her face. There’s something on her mind, that much is clear to him, but he’s not sure if he should ask about it.

“Give me your phone,” she says eventually.

“Huh? What for?” All the same, his hand finds its way to his pocket and he takes it out, unlocking it and offering it to her.

“I’m giving you my email,” she says, grabbing the phone from his hand. “I forgot last time, and I don’t want to wait a whole year to know what’s going on with you.”

“I still don’t understand why you don’t want us to know where the other lives,” he says the moment she hands him back his phone, placing it back into his pocket.

“I don’t want things to get messy.”

“Messy how?”

She shrugs, fixing her eyes on the top button of his shirt, bringing up her right hand to play with it. “It’s like… like every time we meet we get into our own little bubble and we don’t talk about our jobs, or our responsibilities, or anything from our daily lives. Like for one night I can actually stop thinking about all that. And I  _ know _ that, if we knew where the other lives, we would try to meet up and we’d get involved in the other’s life and this… thing  we have going on would be ruined, and I don’t want to give it up. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” he says, trying to ignore the lump in his throat. “But what if it’s not ruined? I- I really like you, Amy. Maybe we can work something out.”

“I’m sorry, Jake, but I’d rather not risk it. I know it’s selfish but-“

“I understand.” He nods in reassurance, bringing a hand up a tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

Her lips curve into a small smile, a sweet smile that warms his insides. Her hair is shining with the dim, yellow glow of the pool area lights, and there’s a glint of something in her eyes, something he can’t quite recognize but he’s determined to find out. Every time he sees her he’s more and more certain that she actually is the most beautiful person in the entire universe. The urge to lean forward and kiss her is too strong to fight back.

One of her hands automatically finds his hair, tangling her fingers with his soft curls, and, the other, travels from his chest to his neck, settling on his jaw, her thumb rubbing his cheek sweetly. His hands move from her hips to her waist, one of them sneaking beneath her clothes.

She keeps her forehead against his when they pull apart for air, and, although she’s too close to him and her face is nothing more that a blur, he can tell she’s smiling. He wants to stay in this moment forever, the sound of the small waves in the pool created by the soft breeze hitting the concrete edge making it all the more peaceful.

A moment later her lips find his neck, and a moan builds in the back of his throat when she brushes her teeth against his sensitive skin. The sound that leaves his mouth only encourages her, and he knows that there’s gonna be a mark there the next day. He couldn’t care less.

“There you are, Jakey!”

Boyle’s voice makes Amy look up, and Jake groans in protest the second her lips leave his skin. For a split second he wants to murder Charles, but when he opens his eyes and notices that his friend is crazy drunk, concern washes over him. Amy’s already standing up, a hand on Boyle’s shoulder, guiding him towards the chair Jake is sitting on.

“I looked for you  _ everywhere _ !” Charles continues, oblivious to what he’s just interrupted.

“Should I go get him some water?” Amy asks Jake, who moves to the side to make room for Charles, grabbing him by the arm to steady him when he plops down next to Jake.

“You should marry her, Jakey.” Charles points to Amy, who raises her eyebrows in surprise. “She’s so nice.”

“I think it’ll be better if he goes to sleep,” Jake says, answering Amy’s question and ignoring Boyle’s previous comment. “I’ll take him up to our room.”

Getting Charles to stand up is harder than either of them would have expected - he kept falling down and giggling like a toddler every time - but they eventually manage it. After something that seemed so simple turns out to be a two people task, Amy decides to stick with them, should Jake need help again in the way up to his room.

“Jake really likes you,” Charles tries to whisper but instead yells once they’re in the elevator.

“Yeah?” Amy asks, going along with him.

“Mhm,” Charles nods. “He hasn’t  _ said _ it, but I know him. I’m his best friend.”

“Good,” she answers, her eyes locking with Jake’s who is standing on the other side of Charles. “Because I like him too.”

Jake’s face is suddenly way too hot - no, not just his face, his entire body is on fire, and his heart is beating so loud and so fast that he doesn’t hear the elevator dinging, only realizing they’re on his room’s floor when the door opens.

The moment Charles enters the room and sees his bed, he runs towards it, plopping down on it face down, his arms and legs sprawled, taking up most of the available space. In record time, Jake closes the blinds, fills a glass with water, places it on the nightstand closer to Boyle’s face, takes Amy’s hand, and pulls her out of the room with him, banging the door behind them. He presses her against the hallway wall, smashing his lips against hers.

She moans softly at the suddenness of it all, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him even closer. One of his hands finds its way to her ribs, while the other fumbles with the last button of her shirt, moving to the one above it when he succeeds in the unbuttoning. His lips move down to her jaw, and, when they reach her neck, she grinds her hips against his, causing him to let out a deep groan.

“Room.  _ Now _ .” she manages to say between sharp breaths.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. 

* * *

“What’s so funny?” he asks, moving his arm slowly up and down her bare back. She  doesn’t answer, instead, she buries her face on his neck in an attempt to stifle her giggles. “Is it something I did just now?.”

“It  _ is _ something you did,” she says once she’s able to catch her breath, propping her head on her hand so she can see his face. “Just not something you did during sex. That was alright.”

“Just alright?”

She chuckles, leaning forward and placing a lazy kiss on his lips. “Amazing.” Another kiss. “Like always.”

“Why are you laughing then?”

“It’s just- when we took your friend to your room, the way you ran around to get everything done… it was a funny thing to witness.”

“I was only rushing because of what you said in the elevator.”

“What? That I like you?” she asks, frowning with confusion. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

He feels the blood rushing to his face, and, by the way Amy’s face softens, he knows she can tell he’s blushing. She leans forward again, pressing her lips softly against his.

“I like you,” she says when she pulls away, her mouth lingering over his. “A lot.”

He only has to lift his head slightly to kiss her again, deepening the kiss when she brings her left hand up to his face.

“Wait,” he says when she puts one of her legs over his lap, straddling him. “Do you have somewhere to be in the morning?”

“No,” she answers automatically. “I made sure of that. I have no plans at all. We can stay here the rest of the day if we want to. That is, until it’s time to leave.”

“ _ Awesome _ .” He brings one hand to her hips, the other finding its way to her back, running up and down her spine, making her shiver slightly. “In that case, let’s go on.”

* * *

He awakes to the sound of music blasting in the room. He groans, and, without opening his eyes, he turns around and buries his face on Amy’s neck.

“Turn it off,” he murmurs against her skin, only to be greeted by a nudge on his shoulder.

“It’s your phone. You turn it off.”

She’s right. It’s not music that’s playing, it’s the default ringtone of his phone, and now that he’s slightly more awake he realizes it’s not that loud, but still loud enough to be annoying considering the time of day.

Reluctantly, he sits up, looking around the room, following the sound and wondering where his phone is. He spots his pants next to the door, a smile appearing on his face when he remembers how eager Amy was to take them off the previous night.

By the time he gets there, the phone has stopped ringing. Still, he fishes it out of his pocket and rushes back towards the bed, the air of the room cold against his skin.

“It’s been ringing for a while now,” Amy comments when he sits down next to her, turning to face him.

Indeed, he has five missed calls, all from Charles. He checks the time. 8:49 a.m. What the hell is Charles doing awake at this time? He was hammered last night, he should have slept until noon at least. He also has 46 texts, and, after skimming them all, he realizes that Charles is freaking out because Jake’s nowhere to be found.

He sends him a quick text, telling him that he’s fine, that he hasn’t been taken in his sleep, that he didn’t spend the night in their room, and that he probably won’t see him until later because he’s with someone. Ten seconds later he has fifteen new messages, the winky face emoji included in every single one of them.

He rolls his eyes, silences his phone, and gets into bed, moving as close to Amy as he possibly can.

“Morning,” she says when he places a hand on her waist, a sleepy smile on her face.

“Morning,” he echoes, pecking her lips. “I’m sorry my phone woke you up.”

“It’s okay.” She wraps her left arm around his middle, resting her head on his shoulder. “We can go back to sleep if you want.”

“I’m alright. I’d rather spend awake time with you.”

She lifts her head, plants a kiss on his cheek, and returns to her previous position. “Do you have something in mind other than staying all day in bed?”

“Can you think of anything better than staying all day in bed?”

“Good point.” He leans forward to kiss her but she stops him with a hand on his cheek. “Although,” she continues, “I’d like to go get breakfast.”

“Right,” he says, leaning forward again, this time planting a kiss on her lips. “Breakfast is good too.”

* * *

He plops down on the bed the second they return to her room. He watches as she picks up her clothes from the previous day, still on the floor, and folds them carefully before placing them on her bag. For a moment he wonders what her daily life is like, what being part of it would be like. He can tell she’s tidy, something that would clash with his messiness, and she seems to be an early riser, although he’s not completely sure about that. Does she live in a house or in an apartment? Alone or with roommates? Does she have a pet? She seems like a dog person, someone who likes to cuddle with a big fluffy dog on cold nights. 

“What?” she asks, bringing him back to reality, her lips curved in an amused smile.

“What what?”

“You were staring.”

“No, I wasn’t.” She raises one eyebrow and he rolls his eyes. “Okay, maybe I was.” She gives a chuckle and walks towards the bed, sitting down next to where he’s sprawled. “Do you like dogs?” he asks, turning to his side to face her.

“Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering.”

“Well, they’re cute and all, but I’m deadly allergic to them.”

“What?” he yells, startling her. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously,” she laughs. “Why are you so shocked?”

“I don’t know, I guess I just pictured you as a dog person.” He moves closer to her, resting his head on her lap. She automatically brings her fingers to his hair, massaging his scalp. “I don’t know much about you, you know, and I don’t mean where you live and all that, I mean, like, what you like, what you don’t, that kind of stuff.”

“Why don’t you ask me what you want to know?”

He nods his head a bit, closing his eyes thanks to the soothing movement of her fingers. “What’s your favorite movie? No, wait, don’t answer that. I’m gonna be disappointed if you don’t say Die Hard.”

“Die Hard is your favorite movie?”

“It’s only the greatest movie ever made, of course it’s my favorite.”

The rest of the day is spent like that, asking each other questions and answering them truthfully. Some things they agree on, but on most of them, to Jake’s surprise, they differ. She's thoroughly organized, he finds out, and she almost has a heart attack when he tells her he never drinks water, just orange soda. He laughs when she says she can’t cook - he can’t cook either, he just imagined that someone who loves following instructions so much would be good at it.

A knock on the door interrupts his retelling of how Jenny Gildenhorn dumped him at his own bar mitzvah. He’s now sure why he’s telling her this, they’ve talked so much that he can’t remember exactly what’s led him there, but she moves closer to him, tightening her hold on him, when he tells her just how heartbroken he was.

When the person who is knocking insists, rapping on the door with more strength, she rolls over and gets up from the bed, where she’s been lying in his arms since that morning. He misses her instantly - she’s right there, he can see her, but he hates the space between them, wishes she’d stay next to him forever - but he pushes that thought to the very back of his mind.

He watches as she opens the door and steps out for a moment, coming back about a minute later and banging it shut.

“Is everything alright?” he asks from his spot on the bed.

“Yeah,” she sighs, moving closer and sitting down next to him. “Did you notice how late it is?”

He frowns, fishing his phone out of his pocket and checking the time.  _ Holy shit.  _ When did it get so late? Did they actually spend the  _ entire day _ in her room, just talking?

“You have to go, don’t you?” he sighs, sitting up.

She nods and his stomach drops. “Rosa’s my ride and she’s all ready to go. She’s just waiting for me.”

He crawls over the bed towards her, sitting by her side and taking her hand in his. “We’ll see each other again next year,” he says, squeezing her hand lightly.

She nods again and her lips curve into a smile, although he notices it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. He leans forward and pecks her lips softly, her hands instantly moving to his hair as she deepens the kiss. He almost,  _ almost _ , gets lost in it, but the sensible part of his brain takes over before it’s too late.

“Amy,” he says when he pulls away, their foreheads touching, “you have to go.”

“I don’t want to.” Her breath tickles his face, and he has to do everything in his power not to pull her back to him and smash his lips against hers.

“Your friend’s waiting for you. She’s terrifying, I wouldn’t upset her if I were you.”

“You’re right,” she chuckles, moving her head to rest on his shoulder. “She’d either leave without me or come back and literally drag me out of here.”

“We’ll see each other again next year,” he repeats his previous statement, this time with a bit more confidence. “And you actually gave me your email this time so you’ll get daily updates on my life. I’m gonna annoy you so much you’ll run in the opposite direction when you see me again.”

She laughs, actually laughs, the sound warming his insides. “I doubt that’s possible.”

His lips curve slightly, and, when she leans forward one more time, he meets her halfway there, pressing his lips against hers, his hands finding their way to her hips.

She’s just bought a hand to the back of his neck when a loud bang on the door makes them jump.

“Yeah, I’d better go.”


	4. Chapter 4

She practically runs towards him when she spots him in the hotel lobby. Rosa’s probably rolling her eyes at her, but she doesn’t care one bit. They’re heading back to their respective rooms after a particular lame tech expo - nothing will top the Rochester one from three years ago - when Amy sees him, standing next to the elevator, deep in thought.

“Jake!” she says, excited, when she thinks he’s within earshot. They’ve talked a lot during the past year, emailing each other random stories about their days, and, thanks to him, she’s now acquainted with a wide variety of internet memes.

He turns, and she watches as his lips curve slightly, the smile not quite reaching his eyes - definitely not the reaction she was expecting. Now that she thinks about it, his emails  _ have _ been weird the past couple of weeks. Maybe something happened and he doesn’t want to see her at all. Maybe he’s realized how stupid what they’re doing is.

“Hey,” he says when she reaches his side, his voice soft.

She frowns when he doesn’t say anything more. “Is everything okay?” She’s starting to get worried.

“Yeah,” he answers, but it’s not hard to tell he’s lying.

“Okay.” She doesn’t want to pressure him to tell her what is bothering him, it’s not really her place. “I’ll see you at the party?”

“I don’t think I’m going.” Right then the elevator dings and the door opens. He walks inside, not turning back to look at her, and disappears behind the closing door.

She only realizes she’s frozen on her spot when Rosa catches up with her.

“Did this whole thing blow up in your face?”

Rosa’s told her a billion times to stop fooling around with him because, eventually, one of them would end up hurt. She’s right, Amy guesses, but she doesn’t want to stop. She likes him a lot - way more than she’s supposed to - and she doesn’t want to even consider the thought of not seeing him ever again. So she shrugs Rosa off every time, telling her it’ll be fine, she knows what she’s doing.

“No, not exactly,” Amy answers, frowning. “I don’t know what just happened. He just… he seemed upset for some reason. Maybe I said something he didn’t like?”

“Maybe it has nothing to do with you,” Rosa points out, pressing the elevator button. “Maybe he’s just having a bad day. Just let it go.”

Rosa’s words make a lot of sense. She’s said less than ten words to him, he can’t be mad at her. A ball of concern builds in her stomach, her frown deepening. What could have happened to him that has him so… down? She doesn’t know him that well, she’s aware of that, but he’s always seemed so cheerful, and positive, and  _ bright _ .

“You’re not gonna let it go, are you?”

* * *

She knocks on his door a total of seven times before he opens, a frown appearing on his face when he sees her standing in the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, puzzled. He’s wearing sweatpants and a gray t-shirt, probably ready to jump into bed, if he hadn’t already been in it. “How did you know which room I’m in?”

She shrugs. “I’m a detective, remember?” The corner of his mouth moves slightly, creating the smallest hint of a smile. “I just wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?”

“Look, Amy, I really don’t feel like having sex toni-”

“No, I know. I honestly mean just talking.”

He stares at her for a moment, his eyes finding hers. She detects a glint of sadness in them, and it breaks her heart.  _ What happened? _ Eventually he takes a step back, giving her enough space to walk in and shutting the door behind her.

The room is dark, the only light coming from the flat screen TV where he was watching a show she can’t quite place by just a glance. There’s an empty bag of cheese puffs on the bed, she notices when she sits down, and an open can of orange soda on the nightstand.

“What’s up?” he asks, turning on a bedside lamp and sitting next to her, a safe distance between them.

“Are you okay? You seem upset.”

“I told you, everything’s fine.” He fixes his eyes on his lap, and she watches as he tries to swallow the knot that’s formed on his throat.

“Jake-”

“I don’t- I don’t wanna talk about it, okay? Stop wasting your time with me. Go to the party upstairs, have fun.”

“I don’t care one bit about the party.” The determination in her voice makes him look up. “I don’t like seeing you like this,” she adds, her voice much softer than just a few seconds ago. “I wanna help you feel better.”

He sighs, his hand reaching for a pillow to his left which he brings to his lap and hold as if his life depended on it. “I- I was seeing someone,” he begins after a moment, his eyes fixed on the pillow. “ _ Dating _ someone - and she broke up with me like less than two weeks ago.”

“You had a girlfriend?” The surprise in her voice is evident, despite her attempts to hide it. They’ve talked so much since the last convention, and he never, not once, mentioned a girlfriend. Has he deliberately kept it from her? He probably has, and she understands, given the nature of their relationship.

“Yeah,” he sighs. She hates the way her stomach drops when that word leaves his mouth.

“Were you together for long?” she asks before she can stop herself.

“Like eight months. I know it’s not that long, but… um… I really liked her, and this whole thing kinda took me by surprise. I know it’s stupid but-”

“It’s not stupid.” Her hand finds its way to his, squeezing it lightly. The way the dim, yellowish glow of the bedside lamp frames his face won’t let her take her eyes off of him. She knows this isn’t the right time to think about how attractive he is, but, despite her best efforts to push it to the very back of her mind, the thought keeps coming back to her.

“I still feel like an idiot.”

“Why?”

He shrugs, taking her hand with both of his and playing with her fingers. “I brought this on myself. I get too deep too fast.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she points out.

“I always end up getting hurt, though. You’d think I’d learn.”

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet.” Her breath catches in her throat halfway through the sentence, and she has absolutely no idea why.

“Yeah, maybe.” He steals a glance at her from the corner of his eye, adding more pressure to her hand when his eyes return to it. “Or maybe I’ll die alone,” he adds after a moment, his voice just above a whisper.

“Jake, you’re an amazing guy, and if some people can’t appreciate that then that’s their problem. Anyone would be lucky to date you. And I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s perfect for you, and you’re gonna fall in love, and you’re gonna live happily ever after.”

The corner of his lips curve slightly, and, with every passing second, his smile grows, his eyes finding hers when it can’t get any bigger. “Thanks, Ames.”

The nickname makes her heart skip a beat. He’s used it before in a couple of his emails, but this is the very first time she’s  _ heard _ him say it, and she blames the warm feeling spreading from her stomach to the rest of her body on it.

“You really should go to the party,” he begins after a moment. “I don’t wanna be the reason you miss it.”

“I told you, I don’t care about the party.” She moves closer to him until their shoulders touch. “I’d like to stay with you, keep you company for a bit. Though I understand if you want to be alone.”

He squeezes her hand one more time. “Stay.” She nods and he stands up, walking towards where his bag is lying on the floor, probably dropped there the second he first walked into the room. “Although,” he says after taking a new bag of cheese puffs from it, “I did mean what I said before, I really don’t feel like having sex.”

“You really think the only reason why I wanna stay is sex?”

“No.” He plops down on the other side of the bed from where she’s sitting, rolling over so that he’s facing her. “But I wouldn't blame you if it was. I’m irresistible. Cheese puff?”

She shakes her head and he shrugs, burying a hand on the bag and grabbing more cheese puffs than can be held. She watches as he attempts to fit them all into his mouth while trying not to let any of them fall on the white bedsheets. “Who could resist a man covered in orange dust?” 

“Exactly,” he mumbles, his mouth full. A giggle escapes her, and she leans forward to brush a speck of orange off his cheek. “See?” he says once he swallows. “You can’t keep your hands off of me.”

She rolls her eyes, lying down on her side next to where he is, facing him. “Keep dreaming.”

“So,” he begins after munching on another handful of snacks, “did you have a good year? Tell me something, don’t just stare at me. I know I’m handsome but-”

“You already did this,” she points out.

“‘Irresistible’ and ‘handsome’ are two very different words.”

“Shut up.” She rolls her eyes again, turning so she’s facing the ceiling. “I took the Sergeant’s exam.”

“What?” he cries out, sitting up. “Seriously? How did it go? Did you pass?”

“I don’t know, I won’t find out for some months. And I think I did well, but, you know, I’m not completely sure.”

“I’m sure you passed. Didn’t you tell me you love tests? I remember because it was such a wild concept to me.” He reaches out for the can of orange soda on the nightstand on her side, literally leaning over her to grab it, the hand he’s using for support brushing her ribs. She wants to respond to what he’s just said, but her breath catches when she realizes just how close he is.

“Yeah,” she manages to say once he’s back on his original spot, not one part of him in contact with her. “But this one was different. I was under so much stress.”

“Why? Can’t you just retake it if you fail?” He finishes the soda, placing the can on the bedside table closest to him, and moves to her side, lying down in the same position she’s in, leaving less than an inch between their arms.

“I’d have to wait another three years for that. It’d disrupt my life calendar.”

“Your  _ what _ ?” he chuckles. “Do you have your entire life planned out?”

“ _ No _ , not my  _ entire _ life. Work milestones are planned, personal things have a time span in which they should happen.”

“Personal things? Like getting married and such?”

“Yeah. I know I can’t plan that in detail so- don’t laugh at me!” She punches him hard on the shoulder, causing him to yelp with pain. “You deserve it.”

“I’m not laughing at  _ you _ ,” he says, still chuckling, before turning to face her. “You’re just unbelievably cute.”

“Shut up.”

“For realz - realz with a z. You’re adorable.”

“I could kick your butt, you know that, right?”

“I don’t doubt that for a second.” He props his head on his left hand, getting a better view of her face. “But I still think you’re cute.”

A small smile appears on her face, despite her efforts to hold it back. His eyes lock on hers, and, again, the light is playing tricks on her mind. She hates how attracted to him she’s in that instant, hates the effect he has on her by merely fixing his eyes on her, hates the way her heart is beating like it’s about to burst. She shouldn’t be feeling like this, feeling this much for him.

His lips are on hers before she even realizes he’s leaning forward, her hands finding the way to his hair on their own. He deepens the kiss almost automatically, the hand that’s not supporting his weight running up and down her side. She gasps when he pulls away, his lips returning to hers in the form of consecutive short pecks just a couple of seconds later. He moves to her jaw, then down to her neck, where he eventually stops and buries his face.

“And you said that  _ I _ couldn’t keep my hands off of  _ you _ ,” she breathes after a beat, and he laughs, the sound of it muffled by her skin.

“I never said it didn’t work the other way around as well.”

She keeps a hand on his hair, running her fingers between his curls, while the other moves down to his back and starts tracing random patterns there. He resumes pressing soft kisses against the sensitive skin of her neck until a soft moan leaves her slightly parted lips and he pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sitting up. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“What?” She frowns, her voice still somewhat breathy. “Don’t apologize, you did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah, I’m apologizing, because one second I’m telling you I don’t want to have sex, and the next I’m kissing you. Hard. On a bed.” He sighs, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “I just- I don’t know what I’m doing. And this is so unfair to you too. I was just talking about my ex and-”

“ _ Jake _ ,” she says, moving closer to him. She places a hand on his shoulder but removes it the second she feels his muscles tensing up under her touch. “Let’s just- let’s forget it, okay? You didn’t kiss me, we didn’t make out. Let’s go back to what we were talking before, what was it?”

“Your life calendar,” he says, his lips curving slightly. “And I was telling you how cute you are.” The second his eyes find hers her heart accelerates, beating so fast and the sound so loud in her ears that she can no longer hear whatever it is that is now playing on the TV, and she feels her blood settling on her cheeks, her face suddenly burning as if she had spend the entirety of a summer day under the scorching sun. “And now I kinda wanna kiss you again.”

She leans forward, her lips meeting his in a chaste kiss, before returning to her previous sitting position a second later. “Now we can forget it all.”

His eyes are still closed from the kiss, she notices, but he nods. “Let’s talk about something else entirely. We won’t stop kissing otherwise.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” she says instead of the comment that almost escapes her about how awfully terrible it would be if they did that.

“Oh!” His expression changes completely, his eyes now glinting with excitement, clearly having just thought of a good story. “I was taken hostage while shopping!”

“ _ What _ ?”

“It was a real life Die Hard situation. Although, they weren’t terrorist, just robbers, and they were Canadian, not German. But it still was awesome.”

She stares at him for a moment, opening her mouth to say something but closing it again a couple of seconds later when no sound comes out. She tries again, but still nothing. Eventually she brings her hand up and punches him on the arm.

“What was that for?” He rubs the spot where she’s hit him with a pout on his face, an incredibly cute pout. “The first time you punched me I deserved it but now-”

“I gave you my email so you would tell me this stuff,” she interrupts, crossing her arms in front of her. “Not so you would send me videos of animals.”

“But the videos were cute!”

“A monkey humping a frog is  _ not _ cute, Jake!”

“That was  _ one _ time, and it was hilarious. But the rest of them  _ were _ cute.”

She rolls her eyes, taking a deep breath and releasing the air with a huff.

“I didn’t think the videos would annoy you,” he says after a beat, his voice much softer than a moment ago. “I just thought you’d like them - not the monkey one, that was more of a prank.”

“I do- they don’t annoy me.” She’s trying to ignore the warmth slowly spreading in her chest thanks to the the thought of him watching a video and immediately thinking about her. She shakes her head in an attempt to clear her mind. “This isn’t about the videos, though. Why didn’t you tell me that happened?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I didn’t want you to worry, I guess? I mean, if I had sent you an email that said ‘Hey, Amy, I was in a hostage situation while shopping, but don’t worry, I’m fine. How was your day?’ would you have actually believed that I was fine?”

“Probably not,” she says fixing her eyes on her lap. “I would need to see it with my own eyes.”

“Exactly.”

She sighs. He has a point. She would have sent him a million annoying emails filled to the brim with all sorts of questions and wouldn’t have left him alone until he answered them all. Having him in front of her allows her to see for herself that nothing happened to him, and if something did and he’s keeping it from her, it wasn’t anything too serious. He  _ is _ fine. “I’m sorry for punching you.”

He chuckles, and she finds herself smiling at him. A second later his lips are on hers. On reflex, she brings a hand to his face, while the other finds his shoulder and snakes around his neck. The warmth inside her intensifies, reaching its maximum point so far, and is now impossible to brush aside. She pulls him closer, deepening the kiss, relishing on the feeling of his mouth on hers, of his hands moving slowly up and down her back.

He dissolves into laughter the moment they pull apart for air, leaning forward and resting his forehead on her shoulder.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, attempting and failing not to start giggling herself, the hand still around his neck pulling him even closer to her.

“Not even the hostage story can keep us apart. We might have a problem.”

“If the problem is that we end up kissing no matter what we talk about, then it’s a great problem to have.”

He lifts his head to look at her, eyebrows raised in surprise. “That was  _ smooth _ . I’m, like, super attracted to you right now.”

“Are you making fun of me again?”

“No,” he says, his voice dripping with seriousness. To make it more clear he plants a kiss on her lips. “I mean it.” Another kiss.

She fixes her eyes on her lap when she feels her blood rushing to her face, her lips stretching slightly into a shy smile. She’s sure he can see she’s blushing, but he doesn’t comment on it. A moment later he leans down, and, as his arms are still wrapped around her middle, he brings her with him, Amy landing directly on top. She pecks his cheek before rolling over and off him, making herself comfortable on the mattress, the bed sheets soft against her skin, and resting her head on his shoulder.

“Do you wanna watch something?” he asks, reaching for the TV remote and giving it to her before she has a chance to answer. “You can choose.”

She changes channels until she finds a movie she’s never seen before. By the way Jake gasps, he  _ has _ seen it, but she only finds out what his thoughts on it are when he voices them.

“This movie is terrifying. Are you sure this is what you wanna watch?”

“I honestly don’t care,” she shrugs, turning her face so that she’s looking at him. “I can change it if you don’t like it.”

“No, no, it’s cool. Leave it on. I definitely didn’t pee my pants the first time I watched it.”

“Did you actually-?”

“Not  _ literally _ ,” he adds, rolling his eyes. “I just couldn’t sleep for like a week.”

“Now I’m curious.” She sits up, leans towards the nightstand, turns off the bedside lamp on it, the TV now the only source of light in the room, and returns to his side, resting her head on his chest. He automatically puts an arm around her shoulders and begins to rub her arm softly, the way the tips of his fingers brush her skin sending shivers down her spine.

“Remember, I warned you.”

* * *

Jake’s shaking by the time the movie is over. She’s not sure why; if you ask her the movie wasn’t scary at all - she even laughed during some bizarre bits. Somewhere in the middle of it they’ve changed positions, his head now buried in her neck so as not to see the screen. Maybe the fact that he kept pressing light kisses on her skin to distract himself was what prevented her from getting scared.

“Are you okay?” she asks when the credits start rolling, running her fingers through his hair, her voice tinted with teasing.

“Mhmm, not one bit scared.”

She chuckles softly, closing her eyes when she feels his lips on the crook of her neck. She tilts her head to give him better access, but he chooses to move up through her jaw and to her lips.

“Jake,” she breathes the moment he pulls away for air, “I’d better go.”

“What? Why?” He’s far enough now that she can see his complete face and she notices the way his eyebrows are knitted together and the corners of his mouth slightly turned down.

“It’s late. I was only gonna stay for a bit.”

“So you force me to watch a scary movie and then want to leave me alone?”

“But you said you weren’t scared,” she points out, suppressing a laugh.

“That was clearly a lie, of course I’m scared.” He leans forward again, resting his head on her shoulder and tightening his grip around her middle. “Stay the night?”

“Jake-”

“ _ Please _ .”

She takes a deep breath and lets the air out with a sigh. “I don’t have anything to wear to bed.”

“Seriously?  _ That _ ’s why you don’t wanna stay? You can borrow something, I brought an extra t-shirt in case I spilled something on this one.”

She’s about to decline his offer but she stops herself right on time. She  _ does _ want to stay, she doesn’t mind sleeping on her clothes, why is there a part of her brain that insists that what she’s doing is wrong? She blames it on Rosa. “Okay,” she says eventually. “But there is a lecture in the morning that I want to attend.”

“Ew, why?” he asks, scrunching his nose.

“It’s about leadership skills. It’s gonna be useful if I make Sergeant.”

With a sigh of fake annoyance he rolls off of her, allowing her to stand up.

“The shirt’s on the bag,” he comments from his spot on the bed.

She nods and moves towards it, still on the floor. She frowns when she notices the way everything’s packed, carelessly thrown in there, a messy ball of wrinkled clothes (there are also five other bags of cheese puffs but she’s so outraged by the mess that she pays no mind to them). So, as any sensible person would do, she takes all the clothes out and begins to fold them.

“What are you doing?” Jake asks between chuckles.

“I can’t stand the mess,” she simply says, shrugging. “It’ll only take me two minutes.” She watches from the corner of her eye as he shakes his head, a smile big enough for her to notice.

It takes her less than that - she’s very efficient when it comes to folding clothes (and he didn’t have much to fold anyway) - and, before she knows it, she’s changed and in bed next to him, covers pulled up to her nose.

One of his hands finds her waist, bringing her closer to him until she’s near enough for him to lean forward slightly and brush his lips against hers. She rests her head on his chest when they pull apart, curling on his side so as to make good use of the heat of his body.

“Don’t just leave in the morning,” he whispers into her hair.

“What?” she asks, her voice just as low. She hadn’t realized how tired she was, but the way his hand is running up and down her back is quickly lulling her to sleep - soon enough she can no longer keep her eyes open.

“If I’m still asleep by the time you have to go, wake me up. Even if you need to throw water at me. Don’t just disappear.”

The warmth reappears in her chest - or maybe it’s never left her, maybe it’s stayed there the entirety of the time she’s spent with him and only intensifies. “I won’t. I’ll wake you up. But don’t-” A yawn interrupts her. “Don’t be mad at me if I do so.”

“I promise I won’t be mad.” The way he lifts his head from his pillow and presses a soft kiss on her hair is the last thing she remembers before sleep takes over her.

* * *

It really  _ is  _ hard to wake him up.

She’s tried  _ everything _ \- not the water thing, that’d get the bed all wet and she doesn’t want to ruin hotel property - and the most he’s done is stir slightly. She doesn’t want to leave if he’s still sleeping - she promised she’d wake him - but she’s going to miss the lecture if he doesn’t wake up soon.

“Jake!” She tries again, shaking him with even more strength than before.

He lets out a deep, long groan and rolls over, burying his face in the pillows. At least he’s moved.

“Jake, seriously, I have to go.”

He groans again, but, right when she begins to consider the consequences of throwing water at him, he turns his head towards her. He squints against the sunlight pouring in from the window, and she has to fight an urge to lie down on the bed and kiss him.

“Jake,” she says again, her voice much softer than before, “I have to go.” He doesn't move, doesn’t even blink, he just stares at her. “Are you listening?”

He mumbles something she can’t make out, bringing an arm up to shield his eyes.

“You asked me to wake you, remember?”

Another groan. She rolls her eyes. A quick glance at her watch tells her the lecture is going to start in ten minutes. She’s about to turn around and leave - she has decided that she’s going to look for him later and, if she’s not successful then, explain what happened through email - when he moves his arm down and smiles sweetly at her. “Don’t go.”

“ _ Jake _ .” He’s making it even worse. She knew she’d have a problem of this kind when she found out about the lecture a couple of weeks ago, knew she wouldn’t want to leave him. She hates the organizer that decided the time the lecture would take place. “I have to, I’m sorry.” She sighs when she sees his pout. “We’ll meet up later, okay?”

He shakes his head. “We won’t find each other again, not today at least.” His voice is hoarse with sleep, his words slurred. “It’s what always happens.”

She sits on the bed then, leaning down and pressing a soft kiss on his lips. “Then next year.”

“Next year is so far away,” he protests. It reminds her of a little child being denied candy right before dinner is served.

She kisses him again. “Later, next year - what matters is that we  _ will _ see each other again.”

“I wanna see you every day.”

The warm ball that had been growing more and more in her chest explodes then, the fuzzy feeling reaching every cell of her body. She’s never felt something like this before, something so strong yet unclear. It’s terrifying.

She leans down again, this time her lips lingering over his when they pull apart. “Take care of yourself, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“No promises.”

She runs her hand through his hair once, before getting up and walking slowly towards the door. “Bye, Jake.”

“Bye,” he yells after her. He says something more right when she’s shutting the door, something she can’t hear properly. She considers going back in and ask him what he’s just said, but she doesn’t have a key to his room and he would definitely not get up to open the door given his state of sleepiness. She’ll have to remember to ask him next time.


	5. Chapter 5

Never before in his life has Jake been in a place this fancy. Ever since he first stepped into the hotel he hasn’t been able to stop gaping at everything he came across in pure amazement. He’s never,  _ ever _ , going to be able to afford something like this, so he’s determined to enjoy every second of his stay - that means completely ignoring the police convention happening somewhere in the building.

Everything in his room - and the room itself - is  _ huge _ . He’s sure at least five people can lie comfortably on the bed, and they would have about three pillows each. The view to the countryside is impressive - even more stunning than what he imagined it would be when he was told his room was on the tenth floor - and outside, on the balcony, there is an outdoors sofa big enough for four.

How he ended up with a room like this is beyond him. Maybe Captain Holt had something to do with it - he would never demand to have the best rooms available for him and his squad, but maybe the fact that he’s one of the most respected officers in the NYPD influenced whoever is in charge of assigning rooms. Or maybe it was a complete random thing and he just got lucky. Either way, Jake feels like a Taylor Swift on tour. 

He’s on his way down to explore the garden next to the pool area when the elevator stops on the fifth floor and Amy walks in, followed by her scary friend. Amy’s expression changes in an instant, excitement washing over her in a split second.

“Hey!” Her smile takes most of her face, probably mirroring his expression.

“Hey, Ames. Funny running into you here.”

“Rosa and I were heading down to the tech expo. I’ve heard there’s a new long-range heartbeat detector and I’m dying to try it out. Do you wanna join us?”

“Sure,” he answers automatically, forgetting his plans to make use of all the hotel facilities. “I mean, if your friend doesn’t mind,” he adds when Rosa rolls her eyes.

“I don’t care,” Rosa says, not looking at him. In that moment the elevator stops, and, a second later, when the doors open, Rosa dashes out without looking back.

“She wasn’t going to stick with me anyway,” Amy comments as they step out and start walking towards the exposition hall. “How have you been?”

“Alright,” he shrugs. He’s had the most uneventful hear of his life. He’s solved many cases, yes, he’s even caught a serial murderer and thus taken down one of the major drug organizations of New York City, but the excitement of it quickly went away, and it’s happened so many months ago that it doesn’t even cross his mind to tell her about it. “You?”

“Great, actually.” He turns to look at her and watches as a smile slowly spreads on her face. “I made Sergeant.”

“What?” He stops sharp, staring at her with a smile that matches her own. “Seriously?”

She nods her head enthusiastically. “I got the results about a month ago. I wanted to tell you in person, that’s why I didn’t send an email.”

A second later he’s pulling her into a bone crushing hug, relishing on the feeling of her body against his again after so long. “That’s amazing, Ames,” he whispers into her hair. “I knew you’d pass the exam.” He’s sure that if they weren’t on the hotel lobby, if they were somewhere more private, he wouldn’t think it twice and press his lips against hers. “So, how’s work, Sergeant?” he asks once they pull apart and start walking again.

The smile washes off her face in an instant. “Good,” she sighs. “But I’m still getting used to it, and I’m incredibly stressed. I guess I’ll go back to my normal stress level in a couple of months, but right now it’s… tough.”

He frowns. “When did you last have some time off?”

“You mean days off? I have those regular-”

“No, not days off. You probably even work then, don't you?” By the way she avoids his gaze he knows he’s right. “I mean actual time off where you don’t even think about work or anything related to it.”

She’s silent for a moment, and by the way she’s frowning only slightly he knows she’s trying to remember. “I don’t- it’s been a while,” she admits eventually with a sigh. “But this new job is really important to me and I need to-”

“You need to  _ relax _ . It’s gonna be bad for your health if you don’t. I’m not saying you should take a month off and disconnect from the world - just a couple of days, maybe even one if you make most of it.”

“I guess,” she sighs, shrugging. “I just- I’m under so much pressure, I can’t just take some time off.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, dragging the latter part of the word. “What if you use this weekend to wind off? You’re already in a fancy hotel - for free, I might add - and away from work. It’s the perfect opportunity. Let’s forget about police stuff for a day, no one will notice.”

“Jake, I don’t think I can-”

“Come on, I’ll help you,” he insists, bumping her arm softly. “I’m the king of relaxation.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “What’s the first thing I should do?”

“First, we’re skipping the tech expo and going outside.” Before she can protest, he takes her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers, and leads her to the terrace, where people are sitting around outdoor tables and chatting merrily. It’s warm for the time of the year, the afternoon sun hot against his skin. He notices a bar on the far end walks towards it, Amy trailing behind him.

“Is getting drunk part of your plan?” she asks after he’s ordered a fancy drink for each of them.

“It  _ is _ , but that’s not happening until the BPD party. Right now we’re just having this one drink.”

He’s not sure what’s in the glass the bartender puts in front of him. The drink menu was confusing and riddled with fancy words he was not sure what they meant, so he just pointed at a random drink when he ordered, hoping it’d be good. He takes a sip, expecting the worst, and is pleasantly surprised when a fruity flavor reaches his mouth, mixed with some kind of hard liquor. Amy seems to like it too. He’s calling it a success.

“So,” he continues, “once we’re done here, we’re gonna walk around the garden, then you’re gonna go to your room and take a bath in the  jacuzzi , then you’ll get ready for-”

“What  jacuzzi ?” she asks, frowning with confusion.

“Isn’t there one in your room?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “There is in yours?”

“Yeah,” he answers, taken by surprise by this revelation.

“That’s not fair! I want a  jacuzzi in my room!”

“You know, I think there’s been some sort of mix up,” he says after taking another sip from the glass. “My room’s  _ super _ fancy. Like, celebrity fancy.”

“Well, that’s lucky,” she says with a sigh. “What should I do instead of taking a bath then?”

“No, no, the bath’s the  _ main _ thing to get properly relaxed. You’ll come to my room and take it there.” She raises an eyebrow suggestively, causing him to roll his eyes at her. “You, Miss, have a very dirty mind.”

“Oh, shut up,” she says, punching him lightly on the arm. “I’m pretty sure this whole ‘relaxing plan’ is going to end in sex anyway.”

“Well, duh. But there’s a certain order to follow to achieve maximum relaxation.”

She opens her mouth to say something but closes it a second later and rolls her eyes. “Okay, so, I take a bath and then…?”

“Then we’ll go to the party, get drunk, have hot sex, and spend the entirety of tomorrow in bed.”

“That’s not much different from what we did two years ago,” she points out, downing the rest of her drink.

“And weren’t you super relaxed then?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” he says after a moment, his voice serious. “I’m just joking around. Even if you still wanna go to the tech expo, you’re free to do whatever you want.”

“I know, Jake.” She places a hand on his arm, giving it a small squeeze. “I want to stay with you.”

Her words produce a fuzzy sensation in his stomach - a sensation that’s normally not present except in very special situations, but that when he’s with her he feels constantly and at its fullest. He smiles a little, the corner of his lips curving slightly, and, before he knows it, she’s leaning towards him and pressing a sweet kiss on his cheek.

She takes his hand then, leading him away from the bar and towards the direction of the garden he mentioned earlier. It’s a beautiful place, peaceful. There are flowers everywhere they look, of all shapes, sizes, and colors. They only see another person once, when they reach the fountain in the middle, and the woman is so absorbed by the book she’s reading that she doesn’t even notice them. The rest of the time they’re completely alone, except for the occasional bird on the path before them.

At some point, Amy sits down on a bench, pulling him with her. The sun’s beginning to set and, although the trees that surround them don’t allow them to see the horizon, the sky is slowly changing colors and soon enough an orange tinge sets on the leaves. He wraps an arm around her back, bringing her as close to him as possible.

“You were right, this is nice,” she says, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Right? You can’t think about work here even if you wanted to.”

She lets out a soft chuckle, taking his free hand in hers. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“Forcing me to relax. Taking care of me.”

He presses a kiss on her hair. “You don’t have to thank me. I care about you. And you need to be at your best if you’re gonna kick ass as Sergeant.” 

She lifts her head and turns towards him, leaning in and planting a kiss on his lips. Her hand lets go of his and moves up until it reaches the back of his neck, pulling him even closer and deepening the kiss. A groan gets caught in the back of his throat when she starts kissing down his jaw, but he softly pushes her away before she can reach his neck. They’re still in a public place after all, even if they are alone. The last thing he needs is to be caught doing something inappropriate and be kicked out of the hotel. It’s a long shot, but he’s not taking any risks when it comes to his fancy room.

“Do you wanna get back to the hotel?” he asks, his voice breathy.

“I kinda wanna try your jacuzzi, yes.”

He chuckles softly before pecking her lips and getting up from the bench. “Come on, then.”

* * *

She smashes her lips against his the second they walk into his room. The way she practically jumps on him takes him by surprise, causing him to stumble backwards, his back hitting the door with a thud, shutting it closed. His hands move automatically to her back, pulling her body as close to him as physically possible.

Her hands are moving on their own, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt until they’re all open and the item is no longer on him. She lets out a soft moan when his mouth trails down to her neck, and he turns them around, pressing her against the wall.

“Jake,” she breathes, running a hand through his hair. “Wasn’t sex like last on your list?”

“Screw the list,” he says between kisses. She bursts into laughter then, forcing him to remove his lips from her skin and look at her. “What?” Her laugh is contagious, and it’s hard to keep a straight face when she’s giggling so much.

“What happened to ‘we need to follow the order to achieve maximum relaxation’?”

He rolls her eyes and buries his face on her neck once more, pressing sloppy kisses there when she tilts her head to give him more access. “I only said that to tease you,” he murmurs against her skin. “The order doesn’t matter, it only matters that we do everything on the list.” He looks up again, taking a deep breath and letting the air out slowly when he notices her dark eyes and swollen lips. “Except the whole party thing. We don’t have to go. We can replace that with sex.”

She chuckles but nods. “Sounds about right.”

Later, when they’re lying on his bed, sweat cooling down on their skin, she curls on his side, her head in the crook of his neck and her lips brushing every spot within her reach.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the jacuzzi,” she murmurs, her breath warm against his skin. It does nothing to alleviate the ball of fire still burning in his middle.

He chuckles, the hand on her back bringing her closer to him. “Of course not. We’ll definitely use it later.”

She nods, going back to pressing soft kisses on his neck and moving to his collarbone. He gasps when she goes over a particularly sensitive spot, tightening his hold on her.

“Amy,” he breathes and she looks up, a look of fake innocence on her face. “Wow, you’re evil.” He takes advantage of a moment of distraction on her part to roll over and change their position, now him on top of her, an arm on each side of her middle.

“Was I doing something wrong?” she asks sweetly, batting her eyes at him.

“You know exactly what you were doing and I’m so taking revenge.” He lowers his face, his mouth instantly finding her neck and nibbling on her skin. The soft moans that escape from between her lips only serve him as encouragement, and he has to suppress a groan of his own when her hands pull at his hair,  _ hard _ , after he purposefully bites on a spot that he knows she loves.

“Okay, I get it,” she sighs, her grip on his hair now strong enough to detach his lips from her neck. “No more teasing,” she says between giggles.

“Mhmm.” He leans down again to peck her lips and rolls over, resting his head on one of the few soft pillows that remain on the bed, facing her. The hand that’s not under his head finds her stomach, and it begins tracing random patterns there. “Are you feeling better?”

“What do you mean?” she asks, turning her head to look at him.

“Is all of this working or are you just as stressed as before?”

“ _ Oh _ . It’s definitely working. I haven't had the urge to open my laptop and start working since we were at the bar.”

“You brought your laptop here to work?” he asks in disbelief, not really sure why he’s so shocked. If there was someone that would bring work along on a weekend trip even when they knew they wouldn’t have time to spend on it, it was Amy.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I was actually considering skipping the party and get some work done.”

“Well, you  _ are _ skipping the party - for a much better reason.”

She chuckles, moving closer to him until their faces are almost touching. Her hand finds his face, and it cups his cheek while her tumb runs slowly up and down, her palm soft against his face. “Yeah.” Her voice is low, so low that he wouldn’t have been able to hear it if he hadn’t been so close to her. For some reason he can’t comprehend, his heart starts pounding in his chest.

Some minutes later he finds himself getting into the jacuzzi, the water hot against his skin in a pleasant way. Amy joins him after a moment, her hair now in a messy bun on the top of her head. He puts an arm around her shoulders the second she sits by his side, pulling her closer and pressing a kiss on her lips. She smiles against his mouth, bringing a hand up to his neck and deepening the kiss.

His entire body is burning when she pulls away and moves to the right so her back is right in front of the jets. When, a moment later, he finally opens his eyes and turns his head to look at her, he can’t hold back a smile at the sights of her, sunk low into the water, eyes closed and head thrown back.

“You see now why the jacuzzi was so important,” he comments.

“Mhmm.” The way she says that does nothing to alleviate the fire inside him. “I’m never getting out of this.”

He chuckles, moving closer to her until their sides are touching. “The water’s gonna run cold eventually,” he points out, causing her to groan in protest. “But don’t worry, we’ll start with the second part of the list then.”

“Which is…?”

“You don’t listen to what I say?” he asks, mock hurt in his voice.

She chuckles and opens her eyes, turning her head to look at him. “I do listen, you just keep changing what’s on the list. I’m pretty sure you came up with this whole second part two minutes ago.”

“Okay, that’s fair. And yes, the jets gave me the idea. I’m gonna give you a massage.”

A smile forms on her face at its own will, and she presses her lips together to hold it back, her eyebrows going up. “Why do I have a feeling that’s going to end in sex?”

“Not everything has to end in sex, Amy! Get your mind out of the gutter.”

She chuckles, sitting up straight and wrapping an arm around his neck. “I’m sorry,” she says, leaning in and kissing the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know how my mind jumped to that conclusion. It’s not like we’re naked in a hot tub or anything.”

Before he can even think of a way to respond, her mouth is on his neck, kissing and nibbling on his skin. He throws his head back with a deep groan, and she shifts her position, moving one leg to the other side of him and straddling his lap.

“Amy,” he breathes after a moment, when it all becomes too much, the hand that had found its way to her waist pushing her away slightly. She stops immediately, lifting her head, a frown on her face. “Not here,” he manages to say. “It’s not- let’s move to the bed.”

“What happened to ‘not everything has to end in sex’?” she asks, a tinge of teasing on her voice.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” she shrugs. “This was just some innocent kissing.”

He snorts. “You are unbelievable.”

She smiles, proud of herself, and leans forward to peck his lips. “Can I have my massage now?”

He nods, and watches as a smile spreads on her face before she stands up and reaches for one of the robes she placed next to the tub before getting in. A full minute passes before he can even think about moving, and when he finally stands up, Amy’s lying on the bed, face down, robe nowhere near.

“I’ve created a monster,” he sighs, climbing into bed, and the soft laugh that she lets out is all the stimulation he needs to place his hands on her bare back and start kneading the muscles there.

It does lead to sex, despite his words from earlier (honestly, he was hoping it would - he’s only said that to tease her), and when he collapses next to her on the impossibly softer mattress, she immediately moves closer to him, resting her head on his chest.

“My mind’s not that dirty after all, it is?” she says some minutes later, suppressing a yawn. “I was right.”

“Mhmm,” he agrees, running a hand up and down her arm. “You definitely didn’t do anything to turn me on, that’s the way you normally moan when people give you massages.”

She stifles her laughter by burying her face on his chest, the hold of her arm around his middle tightening. She yawns again, and he reaches for the light switch with his free hand, turning off the only light in the room.

* * *

“Can you go to my room and get my bag?” she asks when they step out of a particularly steamy shower, the moment she picks up the shirt discarded the previous night and realizes that, in the haste to take her clothes off, she literally tore her shirt open and all buttons except one fell off. “I can’t wear this.”

“Sure.” He puts on the extra clothes he brought with him, and, after she gives him her key card, he steps out of the room

He’s about to reach her door when someone grabs him by the arm with excessive force and makes him stop. When he turns, frowning, he sees Amy’s scary friend - Rosa if he remembers correctly - and she doesn’t look too happy (he has a feeling she’s not one to smile that much).

“What are you doing?” she asks, not letting go of her grip on him.

“Oh, um… Amy asked me to get her bag.”

“Where is she?”

“In my room. There was a… um… problem, and she couldn’t come herself.”

Rosa frowns, moving closer to him, and he fixes his eyes on the floor, not daring to look her in the eyes. “Did you do something to her?”

“What? No! I mean, we did have-” Her grip on him tightens to the point of causing him pain - and not the good kind. “I didn’t hurt her or anything! She’s fine, you can come and see for yourself.” She lets go of him and takes a step back, causing him to sigh in relief. “But I do need to get her bag.”

“Alright. I’m coming with you.”

He opens Amy’s room door in record time, rushing inside and snatching the bag the moment he notices it lying on the bed. He’s back in the hallway in less than ten seconds, but even his short stay was enough for him to see the difference in size between their rooms, and it reinforces the idea that he was assigned that room by mistake. He’s not complaining, it was an awesome mistake.

When they reach his door, he tells Rosa to wait outside - he’s not sure in what state of undress Amy is - and she frowns, but he steps in and shuts the door behind him before she can do anything. Amy’s lying on the bed, robe on and phone in her hand, and she sits up when she hears the door closing, smiling brightly at him.

“Your friend is outside,” he tells her before she can utter a word. “She wants to talk to you.”

She frowns, confusion washing over her, and stands up, walking towards where he’s frozen by the door. “Did she say why?”

He just shrugs. A second later she opens the door and steps outside, leaving it ajar so she will be able to get back in without a key, he supposes. He doesn’t want to eavesdrop, so he walks further into the room and places Amy’s bag on the leather armchair closest to the window.

He hears her coming back in a second later, shutting the door closed with a bang.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, his brow furrowed with a mix of concern and puzzlement.

“Yeah, she was just worried about me.” He can tell she’s trying too hard to keep her tone casual, and that there’s something that is bothering her and she doesn’t want him to know.

“I mean, I get where she’s coming from. She sees a random guy trying to get into your room and you’re nowhere to be seen and-”

“That’s the thing, though. You’re not just some random guy.”

He raises his eyebrows, her comment taking him by surprise, and does his best to ignore the way his heart starts thumping in his chest. 

“I- I mean,” she continues after a beat, a rosy tinge settling on her cheeks, “I’ve known you for quite some time now - even if we only see each other once a year.” 

Before he can think what he’s doing he’s moving towards her, placing his hands on her hips once he’s in front of her and leaning down to plant a kiss on her lips. She instantly wraps her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss and pulling him as close to her as possible. The way she’s holding onto him sets something off inside him, and the ball of emotions he’s been trying his best to keep from growing suddenly explodes, its contents reaching every cell in his body.

He’s known for a while now that he’s caught feelings for her, but he’s been too scared to think about it or even to admit it to himself. This wasn’t supposed to happen, this whole thing that they have going was supposed to be merely physical, he’s not supposed to think about her literally all the time. He’s very well aware of the mess he’s got himself into, but he cannot see a way out. He doesn’t want to break things off with her - whatever this thing is. Being with her one night a year is better than not being with her at all, but he can also see himself getting his heart torn in half eventually. He is  _ not _ looking forward to that.

He presses a kiss to her cheek when she pulls away to catch her breath, taking a step back, intertwining his fingers with hers when she lets her hands fall. “Get dressed. We’ll go get breakfast.”

* * *

“Amy, what are you doing?”

Rosa’s voice takes her by surprise. The car ride back to the city has been mostly silent - Rosa’s not one to talk much, and Amy’s brought a book along. She turns her head towards the driver’s seat, frowning with confusion. “What do you mean?”

“With the guy you keep hooking up with.”

“Jake.”

“Yeah, whatever. It’s not like you.”

Amy sighs, closing the book on her lap with a thud. “I don’t- I’m not sure what I’m doing either, honestly.”

Rosa raises one eyebrow, turning her head to glance at her before her eyes go back to the road.

“I just- I really like him,” Amy continues after a beat. “He’s funny, and sweet, and I have a great time when I’m with him. And, yeah, the sex is great and all but it’s not all there is to it. We actually didn’t have sex last year.”

“Oh,  _ Amy _ .”

“What?”

“I  _ told _ you you’d catch feelings.”

“I don’t-” But her breath catches in her throat and she can’t finish what she was about to say because the sudden realization that Rosa’s right, that she’s been right all along, hits her like a ton of bricks. “Oh,  _ no _ .” She lets her head fall back against the headrest, bringing a hand up to rub her eyes. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Yeah.”

“What do I do? I don’t want to stop seeing him. The opposite, actually. But what if he lives on the other side of the state? Long distance relationships do  _ not _ work and then we’d actually-”

“You’re getting way too ahead of yourself,” Rosa interrupts, her eyes never leaving the road. “First of all you need to talk to him and tell him this weird arrangement is not working for you anymore.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t do that until next year,” Amy sighs, resting her head against the car window. “I’m not about to tell him I have feelings for him via email.”


	6. Chapter 6

She’s extremely disappointed the moment she finds out this year’s convention is taking place in New York City. The best part of it - not counting seeing Jake - is getting to spend a night in a hotel for free, and, as New York is crazy expensive and the hotel chosen is not that big, no NYPD officer is being assigned a room as they can easily spend the night in their respective homes. She’s considered doing the same as Rosa and skipping the convention altogether, but the part of her that’s waited an entire year to see Jake is stronger. She doesn’t need a room of her own anyway, she’s probably going to spend the night at his.

She’s overwhelmed by the amount of people in the exposition hall. The room is small, and it seems to her that every officer from the tri-state area is there (she’s not surprised, who would pass up a free weekend in New York?). She’s about to give up the hope of finding Jake there - she’s going to try her luck in the BPD party later -  when she feels a soft tap on her shoulder, and, when she turns around, she’s met with the brightest smile she’s ever seen on his face.

“Hey!” he yells so his voice is heard over the humming of the crowd around them.

“Hi! I was looking for you!” She’s sure the smile that forms on her face is big enough to mirror his own.

“Should we get out of here so we can actually talk?”

She nods and he takes her hand, leading her out of the hall and to the hotel lobby, where he plops down in one of the couches there. The moment she sits down next to him his arm finds its way around her shoulders and she can’t fight the urge to lean forward and give his lips a soft peck.

“What was that for?” he asks, teasingly.

She shrugs and kisses him again, placing a hand on his thigh and squeezing it lightly. “I just really wanted to see you.”

His face goes soft in a moment and the blood begins to slowly settle on his cheeks. She’s not sure how she manages to keep herself from smashing her lips against his a third time but she does and she’s proud of herself.

“What’s up with all these people?” he asks when a particularly big group of officers enters the building.

“It’s because of the city. I don’t think anyone is actually that interested in the convention. I hope they know that and the attendance doesn’t make them hold the convention here again.”

“Why?” he asks, puzzled. “Don’t you like New York?”

“I do, but I-” She realizes what she’s about to say and stops herself right on time. “I just… um… I don’t… this place is, like, super small and it doesn’t fit so many people. I don’t think I’d be able to go through the exposition if I wanted to.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that you don’t.”

“Yeah”, she chuckles lightly.

She’s sure he noticed the way she faltered and she’s thankful he doesn’t comment on it. She’s had an entire year to think of what to say to him regarding her feelings, to plan an entire speech and memorize it, but now that he’s right in front of her all the words have vanished from her mind.

“Are we going to the party later?” he asks after a moment, his hand moving up and down her arm.

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Well, we haven’t gone the last two times. Maybe you wanted us to go straight up to your room.” By his tone and the smile that forms on his face she can tell he’s teasing her, but her body stiffens at the mention of the room she doesn’t have.

“Actually, the party’s the only reason I came.”

“I thought you wanted to see me,” he says in mock hurt, making her chuckle.

“Yeah, that too.” She leans forward and brushes his lips against his. “How have you been?”

“Good. I emailed you literally everything that happened in the past year so I don’t have much to tell you. What about you? How was your first year as Sergeant?”

“Great,” she says, beaming. “Your relaxation day from last time helped a lot, actually. I think I would have gotten overwhelmed with it all if it hadn’t been for that. I got on top of things when I went back and have kept it that way since.”

“That’s amazing, Ames.” He squeezes her shoulder lightly. “Should we do it again today?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “To help you stay relaxed.”

She laughs, resting her head on the crook of his neck. “Wasn’t the jacuzzi the most important thing? Is there one in your room again?”

He stays silent for a beat, shaking his head a moment later. “Okay, new plan: let’s just go to the party and see what happens.”

“Right,” she chuckles. “Can we have dinner first? I’ve heard great things about the hotel restaurant.”

“Are you asking me on a date?” He’s teasing her, she knows that, but she can’t stop the warm sensation she’s come to associate with him from spreading to every part of her body.

“Maybe,” she answers, her lips curved into a coy smile.

“ _ Finally _ ,” he sighs, standing up almost immediately and offering her a hand which she takes willingly. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

They leave the party less than two minutes after stepping into the room. It’s overcrowded, the music is deafening, and everyone is already wasted. The second they step into the hallway he pushes her against the wall, smashing his lips on hers.

The flirting didn’t stop for one second during dinner, and it only escalated, to the point that she had to put all her willpower into staying on her chair and not grab his hand and lead him to the nearest private space she could find and have her way with him. By the way his dark eyes never left her for a moment she supposes the same happened to him.

She wraps an arm around his neck, while the other hand finds its way to his hair, pulling gently on his soft curls. One of his hands is frozen on her waist, while the other runs up and down her side, sending shivers down her spine when it slips beneath her shirt. A soft moan escapes her when his lips move to her neck, and the way his hips brush against hers when he brings his head down sets her insides on fire.

“Jake,” she breathes when he nibbles on her skin, his fingers fumbling with the top button of her shirt. His lips don’t stop moving; instead, he keeps moving down, placing sloppy kisses along her collarbone when he manages to undo the button.

“Jake,” she repeats, moving a hand to his shoulder and gently pushing him off.

He lifts his head then, a look of pure confusion on his face, and it’s the most adorable thing she’s ever seen in her life. She leans forward and brushes her lips against his, wanting him to know that he was doing absolutely nothing wrong.

“Let’s go to your room. We’re gonna end up having sex right here if we don’t go now.”

“Yeah,” he breathes, kissing her again. “But can we go to yours instead?”

“Oh, um… no?” She doesn’t know what else to say, and the way he frowns makes her stomach drop.

“Why not?”

“We just- we just can’t. Let’s go to yours and don’t make a big deal out of this.”

“Well,” he says, taking a step back, “we can’t go to mine either so…”

“Jake, don’t be childish.”

“I’m not. We really can’t.”

She sighs, straightening her shirt when his hands leave her body. “Alright, then I guess we’re not doing anything tonight.”

“No, wait, Ames.” He takes her hands on his, intertwining their fingers. “I- I could tell you why, and I know where we could go, but you have to promise not to be mad.”

She frowns. “Why would I be mad?”

“Just promise.”

“Okay.” She nods, getting more and more confused by the situation (the heat still burning inside her is not being of any help either). “I promise I won’t get mad.”

“Okay, so… um… I kinda… I live here, and they didn’t give NYP-”

“ _ What _ ?”

“What?” he echoes, his frown matching hers.

“You _live_ _here_?”

“You promised you wouldn’t get mad!”

She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again when no sound comes out. Her heart started racing when he first gave her an explanation, and it only got faster and faster in the few seconds that followed. Relief washes over her like a hot shower after a cold day in the rain. She’s been so terrified to find out where he lived, fearing the worst, and now… she starts giggling like a schoolchild, using her hold on his hands to pull him closer to her.

“What is going on? Have you gone crazy? Was that why you didn’t want to know where I live?”

“ _ Jake _ ,” she says, making him go silent, her hands travelling up his arms to his neck. “I live here too. That’s why we can’t go to my room, I don’t have one either.”

He’s frozen for a full minute, gaping at her in disbelief. “Are you serious?” he asks eventually, dumbfounded.

“Yeah,” she chuckles. “I was so scared you’d live on the other side of the state, that’s why I didn’t want to know. I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” he says, leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers.

“I am, though”, she insists when they pull apart. “We met five years ago, imagine where we’d be now.”

“Don’t think about it like that.” He brings a hand to her face, brushing her cheek with his thumb softly. She leans against his touch, relishing on the feeling of his skin against hers. “Maybe the right moment wasn’t back then. Maybe this was supposed to happen now.”

Jake’s beaming, and she’s certain that she’s never smiled this much before. His lips are on hers a second later, and she deepens the kiss, this time not trying to hold back any of her feelings.

“I don’t care where we go but let’s go  _ now _ ,” she breathes when his mouth returns to her neck, and she feels him smiling against her skin.

* * *

She has no idea how much time they spend in the cab. The second they get in, after he told the driver where to go, he places a hand on her upper thigh, setting her skin on fire even through the layer of her jeans. A moment later, her mouth is on his, her arms tightly wrapped around his neck. One of his hands is running up and down her thigh, and she knows she shouldn’t do it, knows that the cab driver is probably not enjoying having two horny people that can’t get their hands off of each other in the back seat of his car and that he probably doesn’t want to hear them, but as much as she tries, she can’t hold back a moan. She loves the feeling of his hands on her, loves the way they set her entire body on fire, loves the way he responds to her every touch the same way she responds to his.

It’s hard moving from the cab to Jake’s apartment when they can keep their lips off each other, but, even though it takes him a good five minutes to open his door - she wouldn’t stop kissing and nibbling his neck and he kept dropping his keys - they eventually manage it. He closes the door with a bang, lifting her up and pressing her against it, her legs wrapping around his middle. A soft, barely audible moan escapes her every time he grinds his hips against hers, digging her nails into his bare back once his shirt is discarded.

Soon enough, all their clothes are on a messy pile on the floor, and she’s beneath him, breathing hard and yelling his name, his face buried in her neck as he groans loudly against her skin, as their hips rock against each other in a steady rhythm.

She starts giggling again when she’s curled against his side, her entire body pressed against his, their legs tangled together. The hand around her shoulders pulls her closer to him, and she knows he’s laughing too by the way his chest is moving under her head.

“You’re literally the cutest person in the world, you know,” he mumbles against her hair, and it makes her blood rush to her cheeks.

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious,” he chuckles.

When she lifts her head and looks at him he’s beaming at her, and she has to hold back a comment on how  _ he _ is the cutest person in the world.

“Why are you laughing now?” he asks, his hand tracing random shapes on her bare back.

“This whole thing. I can’t believe I’ve lived literally eight blocks away from you all this time. You’d think we would have run into each other at least once.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. “Imagine if we’d ran into each other at the bank or something. You wouldn’t be able to jump me right there.”

“You’re an idiot.” She buries her head on his neck, pressing sloppy kisses on his skin.

“You’re literally proving my point right now.”

“You know what’s also weird?” she asks between kisses, propping her head on a hand when she comes to the end of the question. “That we never met at work. I’ve had to talk to a lot of officers from various precincts in the past year and I never had to go to yours.”

“Imagine if one of us had been transferred to the other’s precinct.”

“I’d be your boss,” she points out, the hand flat against his chest moving slowly up and down.

“That’d be  _ so cool _ .”

The awe in his voice sets off what can only be compared to a million fireworks exploding at once inside her. She lowers her head, pressing her lips against his and deepening the kiss less than a second after they touch. Her mouth moves to his jaw, and he lets out a deep groan when it reaches his neck again, nibbling on a spot that’s most likely going to have a mark in the morning.

“What happens now?” he asks when the kisses stop and her head is buried in the crook of his neck.

“What do you want to happen now?”

“I wanna be with you,” he says without a second of hesitation. “Romantic stylez.”

She buries her face even deeper, her lips brushing his skin one more time. “I wanna be with you too,” she murmurs against his skin, feeling the blood rushing to her face. “I was actually planning to talk to you about this,” she admits.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She shifts her position, rolling off from on top of him and settling on his left, her body turned to face him. He mirrors her position a second later, resting a hand lazily on her hips.

“What where you gonna say?”

For a split second she thinks he’s teasing her again, but then the seriousness in his voice hits her, and her lips curve into a small smile. “I don’t know. I planned a speech but I forgot it the moment I saw you.”

“Because of how handsome I am?”

She rolls her eyes, rolling over so that she’s facing the ceiling. He’s by her side in an instant, a hand over her middle and his lips brushing along her collarbone.

“I’m sorry,” he says between kisses. “Tell me, please.”

“I really don’t know,” she breathes. “In short, I guess I wanted to tell you that I have feelings for you and that this stupid arrangement is not longer working for me.” One of her hands finds its way to his hair, and she runs her fingers through his soft curls, massaging his scalp.

“You’ve feelings for me?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I was going to skip the convention but I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing you for another year. And, according to Rosa, you can tell it from ten miles away.”

He chuckles, and the way his breath tickles her skin causes a smile to form on her face. “I can’t stop thinking about you either,” he murmurs against her neck. “I’m crazy about you, Amy.”

A smile slowly spreads on her face, her heart racing and beating so loud that she can no longer hear the sounds of the city below them. She places a hand on his cheek, bringing his face up so she can brush hre lips against his.

“We should go on a date,” he says after a moment of silence in which his face’s returned to the crook of her neck, his voice muffled against her skin.

“Wasn’t dinner today a date?”

“It was,” he says with a smile, pressing one last kiss and propping his head on one of his hands. “We can still go on another one, and, you know, actually go somewhere that's not inside a hotel.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” she chuckles. His face is so close to hers that she only needs to lift her head slightly to plant a kiss on his lips.

“Okay, so, tomorrow?”

“I work tomorrow,” she sighs.

“What?” His voice is filled with disappointment. “You have to leave early?”

“No,” she says, bringing a hand up and cupping his face. “It’s an afternoon shift. I have the morning off because of the convention.”

“ _ Awesome _ ,” he breathes before leaning down and smashing his lips against hers.

* * *

She wakes up to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, mixed with toast and the faint smell of something burnt. It’s pouring outside, the raindrops hitting the windowpane in a steady rhythm, and the rumbling of a faraway thunder makes her pull the covers up to her nose. The sheets are cold beside her, but she can hear Jake humming softly somewhere not too far away, and she rolls over, burying her smile on the pillows, pleased to discover that they smell like him. She’s warm, and she’s happy, and she never wants to leave this bed.

“I know you’re awake,” she hears him call after a beat from wherever he is behind her, making her roll again so as to face the direction his voice is coming from. He’s wearing the same gray shirt and sweatpants she remembers seeing on him two year before, his hair messy on the top of his head. She smiles at him when he plops down on the bed next to her, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“Morning,” he says, his voice so soft that her heart skips a beat.

“Morning.”

“I made breakfast,” he announces, and chuckles when an expression of surprise washes over her face. “I  _ tried _ to make breakfast. I burned the eggs.”

She laughs softly, bringing a hand up to rub the sleep off her eyes. “We don’t need eggs anyway.”

He leans down and plants a kiss on her forehead. “Come on, get up. I’m starving.” He stands up and walks towards his dresser, opening a drawer and tossing her the first shirt he finds.

It feels weird, being at his apartment, having breakfast on the couch next to him as if it was just any other day, as if they’ve been doing this for years. She leans against his side after she places her empty mug on the coffee table, and he wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her as close to him as possible, burying his face on her hair. She offers to clean up - he did make breakfast after all, no matter how simple it was -  and he chuckles, telling her to just leave it, he’s going to do it after she leaves. She frowns and stands up instantly, picking everything up and carrying it to the sink, where she begins to wash it. A second later he’s behind her, hands on her hips, head down and lips brushing against her neck. She almost lets one of the mugs slip from her hands when he nibbles on her skin. She ends up on the counter, arms and legs wrapped around him, lips moving against each other in a way that makes her shiver and melts her insides simultaneously. It’s weird how right it all feels.

She considers calling in sick and staying the rest of the day with him, but the sensible part of her brain knows that it’s not right, and she wouldn’t be able to lie to her Captain anyway. When she tells Jake this he plants a kiss on her lips and tells her that she should go, New York needs its best Sergeant, and reminds her that now they can see each other literally whenever they want.

“I’m never gonna stop annoying you now,” he says when they exchange phone numbers. “The emails were nothing compared to what’s about to come.” To prove his point, he takes a selfie making a face so weird that she bursts into laughter right there, and sends it to her. She sets it as his contact picture.

Leaving is the worst part, or maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard if she hadn’t kissed him. She can’t bring herself to let go of his neck, and she has a feeling he’s having the same problem by the way his hands are pressed against her back.

“I don’t want to go,” she sighs, resting her head on his shoulder.

“We’ve been through this,” he chuckles. “We’ll see each other again tomorrow.”

She nods, but she doesn’t make an attempt to free herself from his hold. She’s about to start kissing him again when her last alarm goes off, signalling that if she doesn’t leave in the next minute she’s going to be late. With a groan of protest, she takes a step back, planting one last kiss on his lips before turning away and walking out, closing the door softly behind her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more like a really short epilogue kinda thing so that's why I'm posting it together with the previous chapter

“I have to work next weekend,” she announces when he places the box of pizza on the coffee table in front of her and sits by her side, a half eaten slice on his hand.

“But next week’s the convention,” he says once he has swallowed, a frown forming on his face.

“I know,” she sighs. “I’m not going.”

“Your Captain’s a butt,” he comments, causing her to roll her eyes. “I’m gonna tell Holt that I want to work then.”

“You don’t have to do that. You’ve been talking non-stop about the convention for the past month.”

He shrugs, taking a sip from his glass of orange soda.

“ _ Jake _ .”

“I don’t care about the convention if you’re not there, Ames.”

She feels the blood rushing to her face, her lips curving in the smallest of smiles. She loves that, even after almost a year, he can still make her insides melt with just his words.

“We can go to the bar after work or something like that instead,” he adds when she stays silent. “Or we could try that fancy restaurant Charles keeps talking about.”

“I thought we didn’t trust Charles when it comes to food recommendations.”

He chuckles, his smile lighting up his whole face. Sometimes she can’t believe how cute he is. “I looked the place up and there’s normal food on the menu.”

“Okay,” she says, moving closer to him and taking his not greasy hand in hers. “Are you sure you’re okay with not going?” she asks, squeezing his hand softly.

“Definitely. You were there the first time I went and every other time that followed. It’d be weird not having you around.”

She nods, her smile growing, and she moves her hand up to the back of his neck and pulls him closer to brush her lips against his.

“Also,” he continues when they pull apart, and by his tone she  _ knows _ he’s going to say something to tease her, “what’s the point of going if my girlfriend’s not going to be there? Who will I flirt shamelessly with?”

“The one and only reason to go to a police convention,” she says, rolling her eyes playfully.

“That and the free hotel rooms.”

“Right,” she chuckles. “I wonder if you would have wanted to stay if the convention took place at that fancy hotel again.”

“The jacuzzi one?”

She nods, and he brings a hand up to his chin, pretending to be considering his options. “It’s a hard choice,” he says eventually, teasing dripping from his voice. “But I think you’re worth more than a jacuzzi.”

“Thanks,” she says, eyebrows raised and lips pressed together to hold back the laughter that is threatening to escape her.

He leans forward, smashing his lips against hers. “It doesn’t matter if the convention is in freaking Disney World,” he whispers against her lips. “I wouldn't care about it if you’re not there.”

“I doubt the New York tri-state area convention would take place in Disney World,” she giggles.

“Amy! I’m trying to be romantic here!”

She bursts into laughter then, burying her face on his neck to stifle the giggles that won’t stop coming. “I’m sorry,” she says, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. “I’m sorry,” she repeats when the laugh dies down, a bright smile still on her face. “I’m the worst.”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice filled with mock offense, the softest of smiles on his face. “I love you, though.”

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to read this, this fic is my baby and I love it a lot and it makes me so happy that yall liked this weird concept.  
> @everyone who's left kudos and comments: I love you and you have no idea how much those mean to me, someone who needs validation to live.  
> And, who knows, maybe I will write a bit more in this universe, that's how much I love it.  
> Anyways, thank you!!!!!


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